Saturday, July 11, 2009

4th State Round - Awaba 5 July 2009


.......Thomas....... Jake....... Jordan (should be Jack)

.... ...... Liam .... Andrew .... Brent
The Fourth and final round of the NSW/ACT State Series was held on the infamous Monkey Track at Awaba on the weekend of the 4th & 5th of July.

After getting up at sparrow's on the Friday of race weekend, we were on the road by 6:30am knowing we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us. After a couple of fuel and food stops, we were at the top of the shuttle road at 1pm. Boys both kitted up and we spend the next few hours doing shuttle runs. All done and we headed to our accommodation at Teralba (or should I say Dodge City!). Had a quiet night and up early on Saturday all ready for a day of practice. Mum and Dad decided to go for a walk up the track and Mum got as far as Battle Drop and was roped into marshalling for the rest of the day so didn't end up getting any further than that. This track is renowned for bad stacks having had to call the helicopter the last 2 years of state rounds. Luckily Mum only had to call the medics once and they ended up having to stretcher the guy out and off to hospital. He Spent the night in hospital but nothing too serious. Lots of broken bones over the weekend though. Practice for Team Crimmins went well and no major incidents.

Sunday race day arrived and having packed up the cabin and bidding farewell to Teralba, we headed to the track for a bit of practice and race run. Practice over and boys headed to the top to wait for race run. Thomas was the first of Team Crimmins to come down for his race run and looked the goods coming past us at Battle drop, over the wombat jump no probs and off to the finish line. Thomas made his way back up the hill to watch and told us he had placed 2nd in a field of 51 riders. Yay for Thomas, great result.

Nearly 2 hours after Thomas came down for race run, it was Andrews turn. Andrew came down 3rd in the U15's as that's where he was placed. He looked really good going past the battle drop and over the wombat jump, hoping for a podium place. As we waited for the Elites to do their race run, Andrew made his way back up the hill to where we were watching to inform us he had won by 9 seconds in a field of 18 riders. Yay Andrew, fantastic result.

With all points added up for the Series, end result was both boys placed 2nd overall in the Series. Considering both boys are racing well above their ages, this result was absolutely fantastic. Bring on the State Champs next Month. Yeeeewwwwww!!!