March 9th 2014
A Day of Climbing At Godzone Led By Seagate
Racing at Day two of the GODZone adventure has centred around Mt Tapuae O Uenuku led by Team Seagate who reached the
summit early in the morning.
As the mid field slowly made their way up the highest mountain outside the Southern Alps, Nathan Fa avae and his team
ran into the fourth transition point at the bottom of the mountain just after 3pm this afternoon.
On arrival they were in high spirits with Chris Forne saying "We are loving this course" especially the trek stage.The
course wasn't quite wild enough for me but this years is definitely delivering and there's plenty more wild to come, so
we are loving it."
Race director Warren Bates says Team Seagate's impressive performance is indicative of their racing style. Since the
GODZone started downtown Kaikoura yesterday afternoon the top team have travelled over 122 km in 25 hours and 51
minutes.
"The trade off for two days racing without sleep for these guys is that its progressively harder for the other teams to
catch them. They now have a 151 bike ride through the Molesworth Station and then a relatively short 35km trek over the
Glynn Wye range before the Hurunui River section. So their strategy maybe to keep racing until they get to the river
where the dark zone kicks in at 8.30pm forcing them to catch some sleep.”
Racing in second place are Dan Moore, Dan Busch, Naomi Whitehead and Jeremy Mckenzie of Team Absolute Wilderness from
Picton and Nelson.
“What an interesting package these guys are,” says Warren. "They slipped under the radar and surprised us all – the
question is can they continue racing this fast over four to five days.”
Christchurch team Vida de Aventura led by renowned female racer Sia Svendsen with Brent Edwards, Mark Rayward and
Charlie Murray have slid into third place.
“We are delighted to see Sia leading this pack of hard core men into a top third position. They will have benefited from
the quality navigation from Brent Edwards overnight last night on Mt Tapu and Charlie Murray is a strong competitor
despite this being his first expedition race.”
The first internationally ranked teams are Team Moxi AR from the Ireland currently racing in 12th position and Aussie’s
Team BMX Bandits in 13th place.
“Moxie came together specifically for the GODZone and have good experience from racing back home in Ireland. Their
female member Sabrina Verjee raced at the World Champs in Costa Rica last year and is a solid adventurer,” says Bates.
At the back of the field is the oldest team in the event Taranaki Hardcore who struggled to find the third transition
area over night from yesterdays 53km bike leg out of Kaikoura.
“We were watching them on the live tracker on the website and it was so frustrating watching the team go around and
around in circles. They literally came within 50 meters of the right track and then walked backwards,” says Bates.
38 teams are currently on the GODZone full course with three teams unranked today.
"International teams Merrell from the UK and Europe and two Australian teams the Sheep Eaters and Mobiliser Openwire
have all lost a member to illness or light injury but they are continuing on unranked,” says Bates.
Follow the live race tracking and team list at http://live.godzoneadventure.com or see regular updates on face book http://www.facebook.com/godzoneadventure
For more information please visit www.godzoneadventure.com
ENDS