Mikey Northcott

NZ National Short Track Champion!

What a weekend!!!

The NZ National Champs were held in Wellington this year. The XC on Sat and the short track on the Sunday. After doing a a couple laps when we arrived on wed, I decided to change my tyres from the BARRO RACE tyres which I have raced on in the past weeks, and run the same tyres as last year on this track. Yep the GEAX MEZCALs were back on and once again the perfect tyre for the track. With more technical sections (tree roots loose and slippery gravel type dirt) and not such a long climb, the track suited me a lot more than in the past.

I had a good start sitting in 3rd until hitting the lead just before the 1st single track climb, By the time we got to the top of the big climb I had a couple riders with me and then a gap to the rest of the field. I followed one rider for a while making a few small mistakes and then re-taking the lead about a third of the way through the lap. From that point on I pritty much lead the race to the end. Half way through lap 3 (of 5) was when the gap really opened up, I had a small gap on the other two down a decent and as I hit the bottem I attacked up the next climb (second longest of the lap) and was gone from there. I slowly opened the gap not pushing to hard incase someone closed the gap so I could kick if I needed to. I won the race by just over a minute, and took my second xc National championship.