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.

CORC Round 9 - Majura 21 Feb 2010

The second last round of the 2009CORC Series was held at Majura last Sunday in quite warm conditions. We arrived at the track around 10am and the boys only managed to get in a couple of practice runs before heading up to get ready for race. They did a bit of sectioning as it was too hot to push to the top too many times.

Both boys ended up having a bad first run, Thomas stacking and Andrew collecting a few trees along the way. Stop for a quick drink and head back up for second run. Both boys had much better runs second time round. Thomas ended up winning the U17's by only some hundredth of a second and Andrew ended up 2nd in U15's. Pretty happy with results as this keeps Thomas in the lead in U17's with only one round remaining. Last round at Isaacs on 28 March.

National Round 3 - Thredbo 14 Feb 2010

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.

National Round 2 - Shepparton 24 Jan 2010

Finally made it home after our epic road trip which took us to Adelaide and then on to Shepparton for Round 2 of the National Series. After a very successful Champs in Adelaide, Team Crimmins headed to Shepparton with 2 days to fill in before we were due on Thursday before race. We drove to Swan Hill and stayed there overnight and drove the rest of the way on Wednesday which saw us there a day early. As we couldn't book into our cabin until the Thursday, we had to then find a motel for the night. This was harder than expected as not only was the race on, there was an International Dairy Festival on as well. We mananged to find what I think must have been the last motel room in the whole of Shepp.

After departing our Motel, we couldn't book into the cabin until 2pm so we headed to the track to walk it in the morning and then had shuttles in the arvo (in 45deg heat). Having seen footage of the track we weren't expecting much, and we weren't disappointed. But after walking the track, it was actually a lot harder than first thought with most of the track being off camber with a really snotty rock shoot and a few rock drops. Speed was going to be hard to maintain if you wanted to stay on the track. The dirt was red like you would imagine on Mars. You just had to stand on the side of the track and you would go home with what looked like a really bad fake tan.

Friday was a full day of practice. Thomas was getting the hang of the track and actually started to enjoy it. Andrew, not so much. He was struggling with the rock shute (he wasn't the only one, let me tell you) and had numerous offs in that section but luckily none involved injury. Practice over with and back to the cabin to do some washing and get ready for the next day.

Saturday practice for Group B started at 8:30am so we were out and about very early (who said we were on holidays?). Practiced well with Thomas saying that it is like learning a new track every day as it changes so much. The boys hung around for Group A seeding in the afternoon as Mum headed back to get dinner ready and do more washing (gotta love that red dust).

Sunday race day and we were at the track early with Group B practice again at 8:30am till 10:30am then Group A and then racing at 12:30pm. Had a look at the start list and Thomas was 3rd off in U17's and due to start at 12:47pm and Andrew first off in U15's with a start time of 1:07pm (not that it ever starts on time anyway). A few categories came down in their race runs and then it was the U17's. Connor came down first in a very fast time of 1:59.48, next was David who finished in a time of 2:05.26, then we could see Thomas coming down (as the hill was so small and there were no trees, your could see virtually the whole race run except just the first little bit). We were all yelling him over the finish line and he came in at a fantastic time of 2:03.51, provisionally into 2nd position. As there were at least another 40 riders to come, we were still on the edge of our seats to see if he could hold onto it. All riders in U17 over the line and it was official, Thomas was 2nd. Good work Son!!!

Next it was the U15's turn. We watched the whole of Andrew's race run and just held our breath that he would hold it together, especially after Adelaide. Luckily he had a really good practice on Sunday morning with no stacks in the rock shute and he was feeling really good about the track now. As we yelled him over the finish line, he posted an excellent time of 2:13.97 which saw him sitting in the hot seat. As the rest of the field finished, Andrew managed to sit in the hot seat for the whole of the U15's division. It was official, he won, with the closest rider coming over in a 2:21.98. We were all very happy for Andrew with Adelaide now a distant memory. Well done Team.

2010 National Championships - Adelaide 17/1/10

Here we are in sunny Adelaide for the 2010 National Champs. Mum & Dad arrived on Tuesday before race weekend after driving through heat wave conditions all day Monday and staying in Ouyen, some small country town in the middle of nowhere on Monday night. Cooler temps for Tuesday's 4 hour drive with a fair bit of rain along the way. Settled into our nice little cabin in Mitcham and then headed to town to get some supplies before heading to the airport to pick the boys up from their nice, easy 1.5 hour flight.

Headed to the track on Wednesday morning to walk the track and then start practice in the afternoon. Thursday all day practice then Friday and Saturday morning practice with the afternoons free although stayed to watch Group A seeding on Saturday arvo. All practice sessions went without a hitch, only a couple of flat tyres which are easy to fix. The track was pretty short so Mum & Dad walked it quite a few times and got lots of photo's and video's.

Early night on Saturday as we had to be at the track for practice at 7:30am on Sunday. Yuck! Got to the track at 7:30 with a few showers of rain on the way and also when we got to the track. Practice was late starting by nearly an hour, not real happy with that as all the riders were standing in the rain waiting for the track to open. No announcements made as to what was going on either. Not happy.

Finally on track and practiced till 9:30 with racing due to start at 10am. The U17's were the 2nd last division of Group B to come down for their race run with the U15's the last division.

Boys headed to the top of the hill, Mum headed to the bottom near finish line and Dad headed to the race village to watch on the big screen. There were 5 camera's on course so you could watch pretty much the whole race run on the big screen. Just happened that as it was "only Group B" there was no timing or commentary there so Dad decided to head to the bottom section also.

U17's on course. Thomas 3rd rider off as that's where he was ranked after the first National Round in Hobart. First 2 riders came down in really quick times, then we could see Thomas in the distance, coming out of the trees into the bottom open section, watching the time, we knew it would be close. Over the finish line and was in provisional 2nd place but with still another 40 riders to come, still watching the clock. All riders down and it was official, Thomas placed 2nd in U17 National Champs. Final results were Conor: 1:58.12, Thomas: 2:01.95, David: 2:04.66. Would have placed 5th in U19's. Very happy with that.

U15's up next with Andrew off first as he won in Hobart. He comes out of the trees, we look at the time and know he's having a really good run as his time is very fast. Next thing, round the corner, down the drop into the berm and comes off the bike in the berm. Oh no, takes at least 10 seconds to get back on the bike and then has an uphill to pedal before more downhill and into the bottom jumps. Andrew was absolutely devo. Final result: Max: 2:20.66, Joel: 2.21.01, Andrew 2:21.99. There is no doubt that if Andrew didn't crash, he would have posted a bloody fast time but hey, that's racing. Funny thing is, Sam Hill (best rider in OZ) comes down in his race run in the Elite Men doing a screaming time and just metres from the finish line, he loses it in the loose gravel and comes off. Took him from 1st into 5th. As we said to Andrew, see, it can happen to the best of them! Haha.

Looking forward to Shepparton next weekend.