The first of the National Rounds arrived nice and close to home too. Both boys have now moved up a division, Andrew into U17's and Thomas into U19's at National level. Andrew decided to do the Rando/Corey clinic at Thredbo on Thursday before race where he said he learned a lot and picked up a few good tips. The whole family headed to Thredbo on Friday for a day of practice and to check into the lodge. Practice went well on Friday with the track quite dry and dusty. Both boys got in some good runs but because they know the track so well, didn't need to bust themselves.
Saturday practice saw another day of fine weather. Group B practice started at 8:30am with seeding starting at 11am. Mum and Dad had to attend a wedding in Braidwood on Saturday afternoon so were able to watch Andrew's seeding run before quickly heading out to make the big trek to the wedding. Andrew had an absolute blinder of a seeding run and finished in a time of 5:49.14 which was about 20 seconds faster than his run at the CORC round 2 weeks prior and also 19 seconds faster than the second placed U17 rider. As it turned out Andrew's time was the fastest in Group B (also only just over 1second slower than Sam Hill's seeding run in the arvo haha).
Thomas's seeding run was going well until he hit a tree which slowed him down a bit but he still managed to finish with the third fastest seeding time so he was happy with that. He knew he could pick up a bit of time for race tomorrow. Funny thing is that Andrew's seeding time was 0.02 second faster than Thomas' and didn't he let him know it!! Pretty much all night actually. Lucky Mum & Dad were in Braidwood.
Saturday night saw some heavy rain with showers clearing in the morning. Thomas was hoping that it would rain all night and all day as he loves the mud. Not so much Andrew. With the clouds threatening all morning, lucky for us the rain held off for Andrew's race run. As Andrew was the fastest seeded rider in U17's he was the last rider down not only for U17's but for the whole of Group B. Very nerve wracking for us parents standing around waiting. Waiting for Andrew to come out of the scrub, watching the clock, we could see his seeding time come and go but still no Andrew. Next thing here he comes, pedalling and jumping hard, it was going to be close to Joel's time, could he do it? YES, he crossed the line and took the win by 2 seconds. As it turns out, Andrew actually took a 'digger' in his race run, went over the bars and broke his gear lever, a bit of bark off but still managed to get back on and keep going. Just goes to show, you should never give up even after a crash.
Group A practice in the afternoon saw some showers which at times looked like it could turn into heavy rain but luckily it didn't. As the U19's started coming down the track, so did the rain. We were all thinking if the rain got heavier as the riders went through, the top guys might end up racing on a totally different track than the earlier riders. But luckily that didn't happen. As Connor Fearon didn't finish his seeding run on Saturday, he was the third rider to come down the track and as expected, took the hot seat. With only 3 riders left that might be able to knock Connor out of the seat, here came Thomas, out of the bushes, this was going to be close but yes, he came over the finish line to claim the hot seat. Sooo stoked. With only 2 more riders to come, Thomas new he had a podium position. Thomas' time ended up being beaten by only 0.68 second to see him finish in 2nd place in his first ever National Round in Under 19's. There was only 2 first year U19 riders in the top ten so Thomas was really happy with his efforts as were the whole family.
Due to Thomas' fantastic result, he has now been told that he is on the Junior Worlds long team and will be going into camp for the next round at Mt Buller. We are all so very proud of Thomas as this is what he's been working towards for the last 2 years. He now just needs to continue getting good results and will then end up representing Australia at the World Championships in Leogang, Austria in September 2012.
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