Nissan Trailseeker Series Gauteng #3
Down and Dirty - Race Report by Gawie Combrinck.
Coached by Hunter Allen.
This weekend I headed to Pretoria
for the 3rd leg of the Gauteng Nissan Trailseeker Series held at HazelDean. The
route covered 76km and featured all the best single track the area had to offer
with fast flat district road sections in between and one rocky technical climb
with 15km to go.
The ever-popular event attracted
around 3000 riders on the day to take on the dusty trails. As we set of the Jeep duo of Piere Smith and
Thinus Redelinghuys put the hammer down and strung out the bunch as we headed
for Dunlop sprint prime that was only 12km into the race. Arno Du Toit (Scott
LCB) proved to be the fastest, outsprinting Nico Bell (RECM) for the prime.
After that we headed to the awesome
winding trails of Rosemary hill. I picked up the pace and also put in a few
attacks breaking the pack down to 4 riders. Nico Bell (recm); Arno du Toit
(Scott LCB); Thinus Redelinghuys (Jeep) and myself.
With 25km to go Nico and I broke
away on a fast flat section. We worked together and opened up the gap on the
chasing pair of Du Toit and Redelinghuys.
Heading up the last rocky climb,
Nico proved to be stronger and rode away from me up the climb as I was bouncing
over the rocks and couldn’t stay on his wheel. Nico went on to win and I
crossed the line in second. Arno Outsprinted Thinus for 3rd place.
I still lead the series and it will
all boil down to the last to events to see who will take overall honors.
Results
Men:
1. Nico Bell (Team RECM) – 02:43:28
2. Gawie Combrinck (Team EAI Cycling)
– 02:46:59
3. Arno Du Toit (Scott Factory
Racing) – 02:50:36
Women:
1. Robyn de Groot (Team Ascendis
Health) – 03:04:08
2. Theresa Ralph (Valencia RBS) –
03:10:54
3. Vanessa Bell (Bellscycling/LGE
Midas Team) – 03:15:24
Next stop is the Ashbrton Series
race in Dullstroom. I have to win in to take the series win, so will be going
all out for that.
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