Interschools - Thredbo 19-21 March 2010

Friday night both boys raced in the 4X. Andrew placed first in all his heats and also placed first in his Final. He didn't look at all threatened in any of the heats or the final. He was also the only kid (out of all divisions) who was jumping over the whole mogles which everyone thought was pretty amazing. There were 46 kids racing in his division.

There were 76 riders in Thomas' Div for 4X. Thomas managed to win 4 out of his 5 heats to get into the final where he placed 3rd which was pretty impressive as the two kids who beat him placed up in the National Series in U17 and U19. People were talking about how smooth the boys looked on the 4X track.

Saturday was DH. As they didn't want kids killing themselves on the fire road, they
started the race just before the single track. Boys were under quite a bit of pressure as they were both ranked #1 and with racing in reverse order, both were last out of the gate. Danny at SEMTB was talking them up a fair bit also. Andrew's Division was first with 60 riders to go through. Andrew came down right behind 3 other riders who he'd caught up to but ended up still winning by 22 seconds in
a time of 6:08.

Thomas' div was next with 134 riders in total. Thomas didn't have such a great run at the top of the hill but said he had a really good run at the bottom section. The lead changed a few times with the last 10 or so riders but Thomas came down in a 5:58, winning by 5 seconds.

With all the good stuff over, it was only the XC left. Both boys did the short XC on Saturday afternoon after the DH. Funnily enough they both hung on till the last lap and placed 7th in their respective divisions. There were about 50 or 60 riders in each race so not too bad for a couple of Downhillers.

Sunday morning was an early start for Andrew with the XC starting at 8:30am. They rode 3 laps of the 4km track and placed a very respectable 9th out of 46 riders. Thomas, after a late night with his mates and knowing he was out of the running for King of the Mountain, opted out of the XC and went and did some DH runs with Robbie instead. After the SXC on Saturday, I don't blame him.

Preso was after lunch on Sunday in the Keller bar with both boys taking home a swag of trophies with Andrew also collecting the very coveted and much wanted Division 3 King of the Mountain.

Glad Interschools only comes around once a year that's for sure.

National Round 4 - Mt Stromlo 14 March 2010

The National Series is done and dusted, run and won for another year. Yay!

The Final Round saw the Team head to Stromlo Forest Park on the weekend of 12-14 March. Dad and the boys headed to Stromlo on Friday to get in an afternoon of practice while Mum went to work. Mid afternoon Mum gets a phone call to say "Thomas has crashed into a tree and we think he might have broken his finger and we might need you to come and take him for an xray. He's heading down to the medic tent". Just what you want to hear while stuck at work. Anyway, turns out the medics didn't think it was broken, just badly bruised. Bit of taping up and that was Thomas' practice over for the day. Andrew's practice day went without a hitch.

An early start on Saturday with Group B practice starting at 8:30am and Mum due to start her DH marshaling then also. Saturday practice went well with no major incidents in Team Crimmins camp. Saturday arvo saw Group A Seeding runs so we hung around to watch that.

Sunday was another early start with practice starting at 8am and going through until 10am, then Group A from 10am till 12pm and racing due to start at 12:30 for Group B. Couple of practice runs and the boys had a bit of time to chill before heading up to get ready for race run. Thomas due to start at 12:43.30 and Andrew at 13:02.30.

With Mum nervously watching (and marshaling) at the bottom of the rock garden and Dad at the finish line, racing started. A few other divisions came down and then it was time for the U17's. Thomas was second to come down after Connor. He went well through the rock garden and all we could do then was wait till he got to the finish line. Mum could just hear the commentary and was anxiously waiting until all 34 riders finished before we knew that Thomas, in a time of 3:50.04, had placed 3rd after Connor and David.

Next it was the Under 15's and as Andrew was leading the Series, he was first out of the start gate. As with Thomas, Andrew looked really good through the rock garden (Thomas showed him the best line to take). Again, all we could do was wait until all the riders had crossed the finish line and then it was official, Andrew had smashed the U15's by a whopping 17 seconds and did a PB of 2:59.81. He told us later that he was having such a good run that he decided to do a bar hump over the jump at triple treat. Lucky Mum & Dad weren't there to see!!

Now that the Series is over, and with the boys gaining a podium finish in every round, Thomas has earned the title of 2009/10 Under 17 National Downhill Series Runner up and Andrew 2009/10 National Series Champion. Considering both the boys will be in the same age categories next year, it's an amazing effort. Well done Team.

Off to Interschools this weekend. Great.

NSW/ACT State Rnd 1 - Thredbo 28 Feb 2010

Another race and another weekend in Thredbo. After picking up the boys mate Robbie after work on Friday, we headed to Thredbo early on Saturday morning as the boys wanted to get in a good day's practice. We set up the Morewood tent and got organised, then Dad headed back to Jindy to measure up a potential job there.

Practice over and back to the Maggs' Lodge (thanks again for their hospitality) to settle in, do some bike maintenance, have showers and dinner, bit of chilling and off to bed.

Early start Sunday morning with practice open from 9am. The boys headed to the lifts after brekkie while we packed up and loaded the car so we could make a quick get away after race (as we always seem to be the last ones to leave for some reason).

Practice finished at 12pm with Thomas heading to the top not long after as he has decided to race Under 19's for the State Series this year so that he could get two runs, one qualifying and one race run. Plus there's prize money for U19's!! As he headed up for his qualifying run, Mum headed to the timing tent to help out with spotting numbers as riders came over the finish line, Dad was up the hill somewhere and Andrew and some mates also headed up the hill to do some cheering.

Thomas was the third rider out of the start gate for qualifying, after Phil & David. After all 45 riders had finished their quali runs, Thomas had the fastest time of 6:27.23, coming in 1 second ahead of Jake with 2nd fastest time.

Next it was Andrew's turn to head up the chairlift for his race run in Under 15's. Andrew was 2nd off the start, after David Maggs. It seems like an awful long time waiting for that first 7 minutes to tick by on the timing clock, finally David comes out of the trees and crosses the line in a 7:13 and before we knew it, here comes Andrew out of the trees not far behind. Andrew was screaming down towards the finish line and crossed in an extremely fast time of 6:47.89. Obviously he had a very good run as this was a PB for Thredbo for him. All 19 riders finished and Andrew was stoked, he finished in first place by a whopping 21 seconds. It made up for his terrible Nationals race run there 2 weeks before.

Finally it was Thomas' turn to head back up the lift for his race run. As if it's not stressful enough with him having one run but now we have to stress during two runs, very inconsiderate I think :) Anyway, they run the race run in reverse order so the slowest qualifier goes out first, each rider in 30 second gaps until the final 10 which they were leaving a one minute gap. The suspense was killing us as we were watching all the riders coming over the line, some in faster times than qualifying and some slower. Finally Jake came through and was 1 second quicker than quali but next thing, here comes Thomas, you could hear the crowd making shock noises as he headed down home run with us all watching the clock in amazement. Finally he crossed the line in a 6:22.13. WOW, the crowd cheered and applauded, he had won!!! After the whole race was done and dusted, it turned out that Thomas had the second fastest time of the day overall (over 220 riders). Pretty damn fine effort for a 14 year old.