Thomas Crimmins - 2008 NSW/ACT State Series Champion
On the second weekend in July, we headed off to Nowra for the 4th and Final Round in the 2008 NSW/ACT State Series. With Thomas narrowly leading the series, the pressure was always going to be on for him for the weekend.
Thursday afternoon we headed down to South Durras to stay with Aunty Trudy and her gang for the night so we could get an early start on Friday morning. After a good sleep, we headed off early.
We arrived at the track after 4 wheel driving the "Falcon Crap box" (according to Andrew) along a long, windy, sump caving dirt track to be greeted by gale force winds. Huge gum trees all around, no-one was game enough to get out of the car at first but finally parked the car and went for a seriously up hill track walk. Three quarters of the way up, we hooked up with a couple of guys, Tom and Joey from Orange who asked if we would be interested in doing some shuttle runs with them. Great for us as Mums old "Falcon Crap Box" wouldn't have made it up the snotty shuttle road anyway. We proceeded to have a great day with our new mates and got in about 8 runs on the Friday. We found out later in the afternoon that our new mate Tom was ranked 3rd in the State in Elite Men and Joey was also doing well in the Experts. After a great day of practice, we headed to our home away from home which we were sharing with some friends from Cooma and Berridale. Very nice house we stayed in at Sanctuary Point thanks to Sue's great investigating skills.
Saturday morning we headed back out to the track with Thomas's mates, Brock and Shane, and their Mum's following in their REAL 4wd (lucky for them). Got to the track early enough to get a fairly close parking spot, registered without a hassle, got the numbers and the boys were all kitted up and ready to take on the hill with about 200 other riders (lucky we got those runs in on Friday). Good to see all the familiar faces and friends from previous races all on course and practicing hard. Mum and Dad walked the course a number of times over these couple of days on photo duty. Saw some awesome stacks but luckily none of our crew. The track as described by the boys was gnarly, with some big items, 25 ft gap jump, 7 ft drop, log ride, the spine, and the really tight rock gardens and of course "The GAY fireroad" that sucked so much. All in all, an excellent track.
Sunday RACE DAY. Headed out early and still had to park up to woop woop but way closer than other people at woop woop, woop! Boys only had a couple of runs to see how blown out the track had become and felt prepped and pumped. After a red bull, they headed off to the bus amongst lots of good luck's from the support crew. Our mate Shane was the first down the hill in the U19's and posted a clean run with no mishaps. Yeah Shane!!! Next up was U17's Team Sacred Ride rider, Brock with a time that he was very happy with (and pipped his arch rival by 10seconds). Yeah Brock!!! Next up was the U15's with Thomas heading out first as series leader, with Dad half way up the mountain and Mum at the finish line watching the clock tick by, each second feeling like a minute. Thomas pinned it down with a time of 4:21.51, which was enough to clinch a victory in the U15's and take out the Series as well. Yeah Thomas!!! This time put Thomas 25th out of 188 riders for the weekend. Next down the hill was Andrew, with huge support crew on the track and at the finish line, Andrew crossed with a time of 4:59.24 making him 11th out of a field of 28 starters. Yeah Andrew!!! Mum and Dad get next weekend off before heading to the new Worlds track at Stromlo for a CORC round.
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