Lake City athletes eye NZ Road Relay champs | Rotorua Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Rotorua

Lake City Athletic Club's masters men are looking good for another podium finish at the New Zealand Road Relay Championships.

The wily hosts scorched their way to a fifth consecutive Red Stag Redwood Relay age group win, finishing fourth overall behind Tauranga Ramblers A and B, and the Lake City's senior combination, on Saturday.

Like many of the teams which took on Rotorua's 30th event, their focus was on this as a competitive run ahead of the nationals in Dunedin in early October.

"We're looking good for the nationals," said Chris Corney who put down his race announcer's microphone just long enough to run the third leg among Dave Cronshaw, Trevor Ogilvie, Tony Broadhead and Bruce Edwards.

They finished the five times 5km legs, in and around the Redwood Forest and Scion area, in 1h 28m and 55s.

They were just over 11 minutes ahead of their nearest age group rivals, which points to a good combination to race the nationals.

Last year the masters team finished third at the nationals but expectations are higher this year.

"We've got a better team and both Colin Earwaker and I aren't coming off injuries," said Corney who ran their fastest leg in 17m.

Earwaker didn't run at the weekend but has been in good form having just won the 50 plus division of the World Mountain Running Championships in Europe. It is his second world title.

He'll come into the Lake City seven-man combination for the nationals along with the highly regarded Ross McIntyre. Bruce Edwards has also been in winning mode having picked up a gold medal in the 45 plus division at the recent New Zealand Road Championships.

The race for line honours developed among the two Tauranga sides over the closing legs of the race.

The B combination (Ben Ruthe, Tom Osborne and Mathew Smith) had the lead for the first four laps from Lake City with Ramblers A (Ian MacDonald, Garth Hyett, Nick Sebastian, Kyle MacDonald and Michael Pugh) never far away.

A fourth lap surge from Kyle MacDonald saw them move into second before Pugh ran them home in 1h 21m 03s. The time was four minutes off the race record.

Controversy eventually led to Ramblers B being disqualified on a technicality; lead out Ben Ruthe ran three legs when the rules allow for athletes to complete two.

Ruthe, who recorded the fastest senior lap of the day, ran the first two and the fourth, when another teammate failed to show for the changeover.

That infringement promoted Lake City's senior men (Steven O'Callaghan, Richard Harris, Sam Osborne, Andrew Twiddy and Alex Fletcher) into second spot officially and Hawera Harriers into third in the senior men's division.

The women's open race was won by Cambridge while Hamilton Hawks took out their masters division.

A junior men's lap record was broken with Eric Speakman - Napier's national under-18 road champion - taking 15 seconds off the previous record of 10m 20s.