Oakley's Minnaar and Kintner Dominate At Northstar

Oakley’s Greg Minnaar took his third Pro GRT win, while Oakley’s Jill Kintner took victory in women’s last weekend at Northstar in Lake Tahoe. Oakley’s Bryn Atkinson, finishing three seconds behind Minnaar, took second.

On race day the course was dry, dusty and beat up because of the practice the pros had the previous day.

Steve Peat, who placed third, finished with a 4:06.5 and Atkinson crossed the line with an impressive 4:03.3. However, Minnaar blew them away with a staggering 3:59.9 for the win!

Minnaar says, ”The altitude was killer and so were the course conditions. I felt like I was riding through my mom’s makeup bag! I knew it would be a physical race and I knew I had to pedal hard. I can feel it now and it was definitely well worth it.”

Oakley’s Cedric Gracia, who finished fourth, enjoyed the course and it was only by chance that he was at the race. He had been in Las Vegas checking out the Rampage sight and Rob called and asked him to come up for the race. He was happy with the race and said, “For once I’m in the top five and for something I didn’t plan to come to race it’s been fun to hang out with the Syndicate family in Northstar.”

In women’s, Oakley’s Jill Kintner took her first series downhill victory. Northstar isn’t the World Cup of course, but Jill has shown she’s a contender no matter what the venue, and her competition was no pushover, including Kathy Pruitt, Melissa Buhl and the unretired Leigh Donovan.

Kintner recalled the difficulty of the course, “Such a lung burner of a race at Northstar. The combination of elevation, hot, dry, dusty conditions, and all the pedaling over four minutes left us all in a world of hurt.”