Ian and the boys headed to Thredbo for some practice on Friday while Mum went off to work (lucky Mum). Turns out it wasn't such a bad idea for Mum to go to work as it rained most of the day and the boys got really muddy and Dad had to deal with the clean up in the afternoon. Luckily they were staying in Maggs' lodge and it is well equipped to deal with cleaning of muddy bikes, clothes and kids.
Practice for Group B on Saturday morning till 12pm, again in the rain. Boys finished practice and went back to the lodge for a shower and change of clothes. Luckily Mum arrived about lunch time and spent the next few hours washing dirty clothes while the crew headed back to watch the seeding runs for Group A.
Sunday race day arrived and it had been raining pretty much all night so when the boys got to the lift, they were told they could only do one practice run (just to try and save the track a bit) as by now there were huge ruts in the track and it was really sloppy. After practice both boys went back to the lodge for a shower and to put on a nice clean kit.
Race time approaching and the boys kitted up in their lovely plastic poncho's to ride up the lift in to try and keep a bit dry. Seems we started a trend and most of their mates did the same thing (will have to remember to stock back up on poncho's).
Thomas was first of Team Crimmins to start his race run. Even though he was equal 2nd in U17's and he got a better place at the last race than David, for some reason he was still third off at the start. Not that it made too much difference. Anyway, Connor came down in a time of 7:59.23 which we though was a fairly decent time considering the conditions. Next we were expecting David to come flying out of the trees, but no, it was Thomas next, flying out of the trees into the home run, pedaling as much as he could and still managing to stay on track. Wow, he crosses the finish line in a time of 7:43.88, we knew that would be a hard time to beat. After all 30 riders crossed the line, Thomas had won by 16 seconds. This puts Thomas into outright 2nd in the Series, with one race remaining.
Next was Andrew's turn. He was the first to start in U15's as series leader so we watched most of his time on the timer and it kept going up and up. We started to think something might have happened but next thing he comes out of the trees, still pedaling and with his goggles around his hand. He crossed the line in a time of 9:33.93. We didn't think this would be good enough for the win and as it turns out that time placed him 3rd out of 10 riders. Well done to Maggsie for his first Nationals win. It was still a great effort for Andrew to come 3rd as it turned out he crashed in race run and his front wheel seized up and wouldn't turn properly which made it a real struggle to have any momentum especially in those conditions. We thought he must have got mud in his axle but when we got home Ian pulled the whole bike apart and found that he had creased his front brake casing which would have caused his brake to be on the whole time. Anyway, he still holds the Series lead so is looking forward to doing well at Mt Stromlo in 4 weeks time.
Thanks to Nicho for the use of his (waterproof) Morewood tent for the weekend, it was a real saviour in the rain.
