2012 Australian National Championships - Adelaide

Thomas places 3rd in U19 and unfortunately Andrew had a mechanical and placed 14th in U17.

Mum, Dad and Andrew headed to Adelaide early on Wednesday morning with Thomas going to school and flying over on Wednesday afternoon.  We did the trip in about 14 hours, with plenty of time to find our cute little cottage in Glenelg, settle in and then pick Thomas up.

Practice went well from Thursday through to Saturday's seeding with a few wheels having to be re-built and a few flat tyres but nothing major.  The weather was soooo hot and the track was getting really blown out.  We had our pit set up in the carpark (or should I say oven) with a tarp for some shade.  It was way too hot to stand out in the sun for very long.

As Andrew is still in Group B and Thomas in Group A, we pretty much had to be at the track all day.  Or should I say Dad had to be at the track all day.  Mum managed to spend some time at the beach with Thomas while Andrew was practising and then with Andrew when Thomas was practising.

Seeding went well on Saturday with Thomas seeding in 5th.  Andrew didn't get a seeding run as they ran a different format to the National Series.  He wasn't very happy about it either.

Group B race on Sunday morning saw Andrew place 14th out of 22 riders in the Under 17's as he had a mechanical at the very top of the track and couldn't pedal for the whole track.  He looked good all during practise but sometimes these things happen and now he is just focusing on doing well at the next round of the Series at Awaba so he can take out the Series.

Mum and Dad decided to watch Thomas' race run from the Village on the big screen as they had a few camera's set up.  Thomas had a fantastic run and came over the line in the hot seat with 4 more riders to come. The next 2 riders came down and didn't trouble him and with only 2 riders left, we knew Thomas had a podium.  Connor came down to knock Thomas out of the hot seat and Dean placed 2nd so in the end, Thomas placed 3rd in a very tough field of 42 riders.  He was really happy with his result as his plan for the weekend was to podium and that's exactly what he did.  Things were now looking really good for his selection into the Junior Long Team.