NZ MTB Cup Round Five Preview, Tauranga/Hamilton Feb 12-14

The RaboPlus 2010 NZ MTB Cup continues with Round Five this weekend in Tauranga and Hamilton. The six event national series in MTB Cross Country and Downhill disciplines has already seen competitors racing at three events in the south island in January - the three north island cup events in February culminate in the RaboPlus MTB National Championships at the end of the month in Wellington.

Tauranga hosts Downhill Round Four on Friday and Saturday at a completely new venue that hasn't seen racing of any level to date. The 2Stage Mountainbike Park on the Welcome Bay road between Tauranga and the coast has been developed through the vision and drive of local businessman Tim Lawton and the Tauranga MTB Club. The 2Stage park compliments the existing and adjacent Summer Hill MTB Park, with the new nationals ready downhill race course eagerly anticipated by locals and travelling competitors alike. The development of this venue completes a rapid journey for Lawton and his supporters - originally intending to work this project through in time for the 2011 season, the project was fast-tracked due to the opportunity to host this year becoming available late in 2009.

Most of NZ's top downhillers will be racing at Tauranga, and local Elite racer Hayden Lee has a point to prove after almost winning the fourth round of the NZ MTB Cup last weekend in Rotorua. Lee missed out on the top podium spot at that race by fractions of a second (to Wanganui's Glenn Haden) in what was by far his best performance on NZ soil. He'll be looking to go one better on a course that he has helped design and build, against competitors who he knows will not give an inch. Likewise Tauranga based Daniel Heads in the Senior category - Heads was a member of the 2009 NZ MTB Team as a Junior, but has been just off the pace this summer in a highly competitive Senior field. Heads will utilise all of the advantage he can from being involved in the course build to win this weekend.

On Sunday, The NZ MTB Cup travels to Hamilton's Pukete MTB Park for Round Five of the Cross Country. While the Pukete trails have been in place for several years and are well used by the Hamilton community, a national level race of this kind has not been held here before. Pukete will challenge the age group categories and Elite fields alike - unusually for a multi-lap race of this kind, there is very little climbing and the nature of the course will require racers to maintain an incredibily high intensity throughout. Any lapse in concentration will be punished quickly on any one of the dozens of fast, sweeping corners. Rotorua's U23/Elite athlete Dirk Peters hasn't experienced anything like this before - and has been travelling to ride Pukete from Rotorua as often as possible to work out tactics, while getting familiar with the unique nature of this course.

Spectators at both venues are in for a real treat. Both Downhill and Cross Country venues offer amazing opportunity to get up close to national level mountainbike racing with visibilty of large sections of race course easily accessible.

Downhill practice at 2Stage MTB Park, Welcome Bay Rd, Tauranga runs between 9am and 5pm on Friday, with seeding and racing taking place on Saturday from 10.30am.

Cross Country racing at Pukete MTB Park, Pukete Rd, Hamilton has age group categories on a 10.30am race start on Sunday morning, with Elite, U19 and U23 categories racing on a 2pm race start.

www.mtbnz.org