The Napier Harrier Club was represented by three teams at the 2006 New Zealand Road Relay Championships at Feilding.

Junior Women
The Junior Women's team, making their first appearance at this level, were given a promising start by Ashley Aitken who had them lying third at the first changeover. Danielle Kiely produced a good effort on the demanding climb over Mt.Biggs and kept them close to the action. Unfortunately the race was marred by an incident that saw upto 18 teams run off the correct course on lap three. Napier's Sarah Starkey completed the correct circuit but maybe all the pandemonium created by team managers at the changeover put Laura Nagel off, because she couldn't produce the inspirational performance needed to promote the team's position. Anieke Engels ran the fastest one kilometre in her life on the screaming downhill onto Makino Road before Shayna Heywood ran beyond expections on the glory lap to bring the team home in eighth place in 2.52.43 for the 38.3km. A great effort by our young ladies who were required to race distances a little further than they are accustomed too.
Afterwards the race officials couldn't determine which teams had offended on lap three, so they made the controversial decision of removing all lap three times from the result. With Starkey's lap removed from the provisional results, the team moved up to seventh place over the adjusted distance of 32.3km in 2.23.39. Several protests were expected as Wellington Harriers, who finished third were awarded the gold medals on this decision.

6.53km	Ashley Aitken	26.39	(4.05)	27th fastest
7.09km	Danielle Kiely	31.35	(4.27)	40th
5.94km	Sarah Starkey*	29.04	(4.53)	25th
7.14km	Laura Nagel	33.27	(4.41)	45th
7.25km	Anieke Engels	32.36	(4.30)	46th
4.29km	Shayna Heywood	19.22	(4.31)	43rd

*(a runner who worked her butt off but never existed, according to the official results)

Junior Men
In the Junior Men's contest Napier finished sixth over the 38.3km distance in 2.11.55.
Daniel Wallis gave them a strong beginning to be only two seconds off the lead and what would have been a lap record. Ryan Woolley had the difficult assignment of matching strides with some of the top performers and didn't have a happy run and gradually drifted off the leaders. On lap three Steven Smith, who has not had enough time to regain his full fitness since his chest operation, flogged himself totally and concerned spectators were close to ringing his next-of-kin as his corpse lay on the roadside at the changeover.
On lap four Stefan Smith produced a massive effort and was challenging for third when he developed severe stomach cramps a kilometre from the next changeover. His reduced pace cost him possibly the second or third fastest lap time and the team any chance of a podium placing.
Eric Speakman and Cameron Poole-Smith finished with solid efforts but they were only running for pride with no chance of a medal. Proof of how hot the action was, all six lap records were broken.

6.53km	Daniel Wallis	21.31	(3.18)	2nd fastest
7.09km	Ryan Woolley	25.10	(3.33)	9th
5.94km	Steven Smith	21.41	(3.39)	6th
7.14km	Stefan Smith	24.47	(3.28)	5th
7.25km	Eric Speakman	24.02	(3.19)	8th
4.29km	Cameron Poole-Smith	14.44	(3.26)	8th

Senior Men
Napier's Senior Men's team finished fifth in the C Grade.
The team was thrown into disarray when Craig Mathers was forced to withdraw on Friday morning. Luckily Peter Gillies generously made himself available to fill the gap at the eleventh hour.
A tremendous opening lap run by Shane Vincent of 32.30 over the demanding 9.41km gave them a commanding two minute advantage. Vincent displayed his tremendous potential, revelling on the course and putting the team ahead of a couple of A graders.
Sadly this early dominance couldn't be sustained and poor old Shane McCormack, who hasn't raced all season because of his EIT studies, had to attempt to foot it on the lap where most teams unveiled their 'guns'. Although McCormack went through a living hell as a steady stream of runners went pass he was only passed by Wanganui in the C grade. Although they thought the situation was worse, not realising Hamilton Hawks had been upgraded to B grade since the original team registration.
Peter Gillies tried to conquer his third lap bogie from 2004, but will admit this difficult assignment won again. Papakura got their nose in front and soon into the next lap Scottish relegated Napier to fourth place. This was through no fault of young Ryan Smith who ran well above expectations in new territiory.
Trevor Fulton never saw another runner on the whole journey but revelled in the loneliness on lap 5, especially with a handy tailwind over the last 5.5km. His time was 70 seconds quicker than his 2003 effort which had nothing to do with him picking another 'soft cock' lap.
Mark Speakman was only a mild shadow of his 2003 self and although he rated impressively with others on the lap, he couldn't match the strong effort from the Energy City runner. Even the offer from Alastair Snowden to pull Mark through wasn't taken up. Steve Lindsay had a strong run back into Feilding and the team finished in 4.24.11 to be 30th overall amongst the 56 teams competing over the 67.5km seven lap course.

Questions have to asked about the grading of local teams, with Wanganui Harriers winning the C Grade by 8.37 in a time faster than Hamilton Hawks who were regraded to B grade prior to the start. Admittedly not as bad as 2003, when Hawera Harriers won this grade by 12.52, with a time which would have given them 8th place of 13 in B grade.

9.41km	Shane Vincent	32.30	(3.27)	11th fastest
10.16km	Shane McCormack	39.46	(3.55)	38th
9.78km	Peter Gillies	39.54	(4.05)	38th
9.71km	Ryan Smith	38.21	(3.57)	30th
9.70km	Trevor Fulton	37.43	(3.53)	30th
9.55km	Mark Speakman	38.15	(4.00)	28th
9.14km	Stephen Lindsay	37.42	(4.07)	39th

Thanks to Barbara, Nicole, Clive, Wayne, Sheryl and Bruce for all the background support. It was a another enjoyable harrier experience. Commiserations to the Speakmans, who incurred an unwanted additional expense.

Previous Years Results Here:-

2001

2005