After much planning and organising, the day finally arrived for us to head to Hobart for Round 1 of the 2009/10 National Series to be held at Glenorchy MTB Park. Mum & Dad headed off in the car on the Wednesday to drive to Melbourne to catch the Spirit of Tasmania across Bass Strait. We contended with 3.5 mtr swells in our "luxurious" recliner chairs to arrive at Devonport to then drive 4 hrs to Hobart airport to pick the boys up off their 1.5hr flight from Canberra with 15mins to spare. Phewwww!! Thanks to the Smith's for hosting the boys on Wednesday night and ensuring their timely arrival at the airport and onto the flight bound for Hobart. Which as it happened was loaded up with Canberra mountain bikers.
We then headed from the airport straight to the track with the boys keen to walk the course to see what they had to contend with for the weekend. Discussions that night held the track as technical, fast with big jumps, possibly one of the hardest on the circuit this year.
Friday morning arrived with overcast skies and threatening rain. Shuttles were slow with the boys doing a bit of sectioning and M & D walking the track trying to get some shots. Our crew holding their own with Glen & Stu doing shuttles and Ian chief mechanic (as we seemed to have the only toolbox in the car park). Late in practice, Thomas turned up riding one handed and informed us he had stacked and injured his right wrist. Practice over for the day, dropped Mum & Andrew back at base camp and spent the next 5 hours at the hospital waiting for an X-Ray. X-Ray done and no major damage.
Saturday dawned after a night of rain and howling wind. Off to the track again for early practice, shuttles much faster than yesterday. All going well with boys hitting more lines each run. The boys and their mates were all getting more confident after each run and feeling good about their preparation. Andrew hitting all major A lines. Thanks to our new mate Peter for strapping Thomas' wrist pre-practice which kept him going for the day, although still pretty sore.
Sunday race day and another early start with group B having first practice. The boys punched out their usual 3 runs and were feeling as though they had the track pretty dialed even though it was getting pretty blown out. As U17's & U15's were due to race pretty early in the order, both boys headed up in the shuttle buses to wait for their runs. Clouds threatening to open up just before race runs commenced but luckily only a few drops in it.
Thomas, racing his first year in U17's at National level, came down mid field really holding his own against the older top riders, missing out on 2nd position by .24 of a second but holding out 3rd place by 11 seconds in a field of 32 riders. Bloody good effort to get on the podium.
Andrew is racing his first full National Series in U15's and at 12 years of age, is one of the younger riders in this field. Andrew was 4th on the start list and came out of the trees right on another riders tail, who it ends up he followed like that for the whole bottom part of the track. His race time blitzed the U15's field by a massive 13 seconds and secured his first place, and Series leader. Go Andrew!!!
The after party consisted of Pizza and drinks at community house with lots of laughs and chilling after a stressful few days.
Very happy with the weekend's effort, we packed up the ute and headed, no, not to do touristy things, but to Mt Wellington so the boys could do some 15min downhill runs with their mates. Yay.
Had lunch at Hobart wharf with mates and then headed off for the drive to Devonport to get on the boat. Luckily Mum had upgraded to a cabin for the trip home as it was not a pleasant sleep in those recliners. Arrived back at Melbourne at 6:30am all ready for the drive back home. It was a struggle but we made it home safe and a great weekend was had by all. Watch this space for more updates for the rest of the Series and Champs coming up next in mid January.
