It was a perfect day with for racing with a bit of moisture in the soil for the first lap and then nothing but hero dirt after that. A challenging 9.5km course was set out for riders and with about 95% single track and just the odd tree root here and there J.
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Perfect blue skies and a trail full of sweet single track set the scene for the Coffs round of the 2014 GNaTPACK MTB series.
There were smiles all round at the Bum Steer on Sunday morning as the Sawmill
shone in all its glory. Another year has passed all too quickly and the winners of the inaugural Coffs Harbour MTB club championships have been decided!
A contingent of 11 Coffs MTB riders have taken on what is one of the biggest MTB stage races in Australia, the Cape to Cape in Western Australia.
Coffs Harbour Cycle Club will shortly announce the new date for the postponed GNaTPACK race, but in the meantime let's have a look at what went down on the uber fast Jack's Ridge trail at Nambucca Heads. In the open category, Joel Harrigan has showed that parenthood as not slowed him down at all and led the race from start to finish. There was a bit of a tussle for the minor placings though with young Gregory Manttan from Armidale overtaking single speeder Geoff Gilchrist on the last lap to sort out 2nd and 3rd place. I'm not sure if ASADA have tested the Torq energy products, but Torq rider Emily Parkes is becoming very fast indeed and consistent for that matter. With only 24 seconds between her fastest and slowest of four laps, Em was also the 5th fastest rider all day beating half the open mens field! The full results are attached at the bottom of the post and show that Coffs riders placed well in most categories, and there were some great sprint finishes to give spectators something to cheer over. The Nambucca crew put on a fantastic event on a beautifully prepared track. The first lap or two were slightly greasy in a couple of places but the sun soon had the track turning very grippy. Congratulations to everyone who made the trip down to Nambucca and had fun racing against people from throughout the region. Next up for Coffs is a Cross Country lap race at Cows with Guns on Sunday 21 April then round 3 of the GNaTPACK series will be at Taree on 19 May. Happy riding 
A perfect sunny day greeted riders and the trail crew had prepared a very fast, flowing course that had been immaculately groomed. The day started off with the Dirtmasters event on a 600m course. It was great to see the kids hitting the berms on “Lock Stocks” trail and being cheered on by a good crowd. The number of laps completed by each rider was: Amos Gibson – 6 laps Corben Collard – 5 laps Jack Virieux – 5 laps Tamika Vogele – 5 laps Harry Sinclair – 5 laps Riley Sinclair – 4 laps. The course layout for the main event was quite different to previous years with ‘Isengaard’ trail built to connect ‘Barking Spiders’ with ‘Mosquito Coast’ and then on to the creek line. It was also a slightly tougher finish coming up through ‘AJs’ to avoid the parking area. A massive shout out to Jeff Paul who has done a huge amount of work building higher, dry lines and drainage work to combat all the rain Coffs Harbour has been getting. Race results are available at the bottom of the post and tell the tale of how the race unfolded for each category. There was a lot of close racing in each category which is great to see. Also good to see a number of Coffs riders who are more road oriented out on the trail – Convert to the dirt, you know you want to Thank you to the people who stopped to help an injured rider, the SES for their great work, timekeepers and Bonville School P&C for a fantastic BBQ. Check out some PHOTOS of the day. Round 2 for GNaTPACK is in Kempsey on Sunday 6th of May – there will also be a Super D race on the Saturday for those who like their riding pointed downhill. In the meantime, there is the Port Macquarie 24hr on the weekend of 21/22 April – details on the race website.
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