Wellington To Masterton Relay

The Vic Harrier Club disappointed with its performance in the annual Wellington Mas-terton Relay (62.4 miles) which the Wellington Harrier Club won for the first time in its history.

Some 23 teams (230 runners) took part in this event.

The relay race itself lacked "atmosphere" this year with the absence of the powerful Auckland clubs — Auckland University. Owairaka, Onehunga and Lynndale.

The Wellington Masterton Relay consists of 10 laps of varying distance as follows: from Wellington to Petone (6.9 miles), Petone to Taita (6.6 miles). Taita to Upper Hutt (7.0 miles). Upper Hutt to Te Marua (4.1 miles), Te Marua to Kaitoke (4.9 miles), Kaitoke to the Summit (3.9 miles), Summit to Featherston (6.6 miles), Featherston to Greytown (7.8 miles). Greytown to Clairville (6.9 miles), Clairville to Masterton (7.7 miles).

The Vic runners in the order they ran the laps, with times and with last year's times in brackets were as follows: Ian Stockwell 38m 3s (37m 26s). Jim Callaghan 40m 42s (35m 42s). Murray Pinkham (39m 40s (40m 43s), Steve Havill 24m 26s (21m 51s). Bryan Dawkins 30m 33s (30m 45s), Tim Dravitzki 26m 51s (25m 8s). Tony Woolhouse 34m 11s (33m 4s), Martyn Fisher 42m 32s (43m 21s). Tony Burge 40m 12s (38m 1s), Ian Hunt 43m 58s (43m 11s).

While Victoria's placing (11th) in the race out of 23 teams was the same as last year, the time (6h 1m 28s) was considerably slower than that for 1968. (5h 49m 22s).

In fact the total time for 1969 was the slowest Vic has recorded since 1964.