Firstly a big thanks to all those who braved some 'less than ideal' weather on Saturday to enjoy the pleasures of a mushy, mucky, St. Pats Forest. Having been up in the forest many times over the last few months, Saturday morning we saw the slipperiest condition of the lot. The top layer of clay had dissolved, giving some challenging conditions for all. (Just ask Graeme Campbell, I left him to dig the 4WD out while I scooted off to lay the last control by bike!)
In the ALMOST MADE IT Category STEVE PYATT takes top honours with 340 points, (most points collected) unfortunately being 6+ minutes late incurred a penalty of 35 points taking him down to 305 and 5th instead of first in the Vets.
In the 'not so easy' EASY COME EASY GO Category T.REV takes it with 15+ minutes late taking a respectable 250 down to 170.
Out of a modest field of 34 entrants, 9 had to be separated by time as their points were the same. In the Open Men, STU FINLAYSON scored an excellent 300 along with ADAM STODART knocking Adam into 3rd by 15 seconds! But DAVE KING took the title with 330 and still had 14 seconds of his 2 hours left!! In the Vet Men MARCO RENALLI, MIKE FEE and MIKE DALTON all collected 310, but Marco was quickest to claim 2nd. These 3 were overtaken by TONY BRINDLE to win the Vet Men's with 320. In the Junior Men COLIN BARR won with a whopping 290, 9th overall, and still with over 10 minutes to spare. Rec Men was taken by Gavin & Co. with 255, (280 - 25) time to slot Gavin into the Opens I think!
AMANDA McDOWELL took the Open Women Title with 200 (230 - 30) having slogged around the forest for 2:05:45. CHRISTINE DE ROO saw off JILL FORD and PAM PYATT to take 1st in Vet Women. And Junior Women was taken by HAYLEY ROBERTSON. SUSAN PYATT and MONIQUE PECK came in together to claim equal 2nd looking like they had enjoyed themselves.
Dave King and Tony Brindle have been kind enough to share their winning formulae. A run down on the controls visited and in which order follows. Firstly Dave's route.
Order was: 14, 9, 27, 18, 26, 7, 24 (up and back down to track), 17, 25,15 (out and back to track), 20, 21 (down track to road), 22, 6 , 2, Finish
"Plan was to get 4, 5, and 23 as well. But as I started late, time was not on my side (and legs!)".
Now Tony's Route Choice: 2, 10, 3, 19, 11, 13, 4, 21, 24, 7, 26, 18, 16, 27, 9, 14
"Thanks for a really good event. The route options you provided were superb and enabled several potential winning strategies, rather than one or two obvious winners as is often the case. My route choice was based on maximum rideability, given the conditions, and only one control had me walking for more than a couple of minutes (getting back up from 19)".
Results and points standings have been on the MTBO website for several weeks, unfortunately the index page wasn't updated and it may appear that they hadn't been installed - sorry. But you'll now be able to see what you need to do to win your category at the final series event on 31 Aug at Makara Peak! There are also some pictures at kkombaats.rhizome.net.nz/hvmbc/photoalbum.asp.