Finally a race close to home so not much traveling and no accommodation costs. As Thomas was at the AIS Camp with the Junior Worlds long team, he would be traveling to and from the event with the team so it was just Mum, Dad & Andrew for this one.
We arrived at the track nice and early Saturday morning so Andrew could get in a few practice runs. As he hadn't ridden any bike for the last three weeks because of his broken finger, he thought he needed the practice. Unfortunately the weather was really windy and that only means one thing, the jumps get really dangerous so most people were preserving life and not doing all the big jumps.
Sunday was much the same with strong winds and pretty cold temperatures. Thomas got a few good tips from Nathan Rennie who, along with Jared Rando, were coaching the Junior Team, about riding Stromlo when it is really windy.
As Thomas was on the AIS Camp, he was told all the team would have to race in Elite Division for this round which he was happy to do to see how he would go. This is because when the team goes to the Champs they would be racing against the Elite riders, so they might as well get used to it here.
Anyway, both boys did a couple of practice runs before Thomas headed up to the start for qualifying. Out of the 33 riders registered in Elite, they would only be taking 17 riders through to the final so Thomas knew he had to put in a good run. He managed to do that and ended up qualifying 7th.
Next it was Andrew's turn to head up for race run. With nearly 40 riders in U17's and Andrew racing up a division, he knew he would have his work cut out. But as it turned out, Andrew pulled off the win by over 8 seconds in a time of 2:27.77. We were all stoked on that, especially as it was such a fast time.
After a few running repairs on Thomas' bike, he headed back to the top for race run. He had a pretty good run and managed to finish in 10th place in Elite in a time of 2:25.50. Gotta be stoked on that as he should be racing U17's!!
All in all was a great weekend with great results. Andrew is now leading the U17's Series going into the last round in Coffs next month. Thomas learnt a lot from 5 days in Camp. He will miss the next round as he's heading over to Crankworx in Canada for 2 weeks. (Don't think he's overly devastated though :)
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