Winter racing on Karapiro

By Brad Hayes

The overnight low was minus 3 degrees and the morning was foggy. The topic of conversation at registration was around “where is the lake?” and “how much clothing shall I wear?”. Then Stephen Brown and Terry Newlands from BOP turned up - the former in shorts, the latter in jandals - the fog lifted in sympathy and at 9:00AM racing started in picture perfect conditions.

Matt Hall starting in the 5 minute group got out to a good lead in his new purple Phantom and was never caught, winning the lap 1, 6.3km handicap race. Two minutes later Terry Newlands came in second closely followed by Viv Parker, hotly pursued by the 12 minute group. Daniel Peacocke (Otago) starting last at 13 minutes took fastest time in 30:17 and connected with the 12 minute group shortly after rounding the mark to head out for lap 2.

Jess Blair once again was fastest female, and won the spot prize, again! After two laps (13km) Daniel was looking strong but had to pull out and head up to Auckland, leaving Paul Dutton to take out the 19km event from Stephen Brown and Steve Smith.

De-briefing took place at Scott’s Café in Leamington. All agreed it was a great morning to be out on the lake. See the great photos on our web site at

http://kkrc.squarespace.com/winter-series/winter-series-17-june/  (thanks Imelda). Thanks also to Jo Hayes for time keeping.