Newcastle puts on glorious SL weekend

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Last Updated: Sunday, 16 July 2017 21:49

Our Newcastle club is truly spoilt for quality bush maps, and they rolled out another beauty for State Leaue 8 at Quorrobolong on Saturday.

The smallish Barraba Lane map had much fast open running, with a few steep watercourses thrown in to mix it up. And a smattering of tracks. A classic Middle Distance location and one that will see a lot of use in the years to come.

Georgina Macken (Central Coast) had a great win in W21A, while Gayle Shepherd (Uringa, pictured) crushed her W45AS opponents by eight and a half minutes - as well as taking out the 'chocolate leg' among rivals.

In M20A, Thomas Gordon (KNOX) pipped Alastair George (Big Foot) for a breakthrough win, while visiting Israeli Itay Manor (Uringa) edged out NSW Junior Squad coach Rob Bennett (Newcastle) in a closely contested M21A.

On Sunday it was a Long Distance event at Wallaroo State Forest on 'Rocky Ridges', a hybrid of two previous maps that offered some longer track running or more direct compass navigation, often to small point features such as tree root mounds or small rockfaces.

Nicola Blatchford (Newcastle) roared back to form in W21A, while Hunter Schools champs organiser Colin Bailey triumphed in a very close M45AS class. There were multiple victories in the Shingler (BF), Doyle (UR), Woolford (Bush n Beach), Enderby, Rigby and Craig (NC) families.

Our State League web page has links to all the weekend results, Attackpoint splits (by course) and Routegadget.

We also ask all participants to please fill out the very brief Course Setter of the Year survey for each day - this will provide important feeback for setters and controllers, as well as helping decide one of our prestigous annual awards.

A big thank you to Newcastle for a woinderful weekend, and a reminder that the next SL outing is in conjunction with the NSW schools champs in Wollongong on August 19-20. School students are to enter via Trybooking; everyone else via Eventor.