The Mighty 11 BMX tour is an annual test series and cultural exchange for the top five 11 year old BMX riders from NZ and Australia. The Mighty 11 BMX test series competition is held twice a year, the NZ team goes to Australia in June and the Australian team comes to NZ in October. Australia currently hold the trophy.
Liam had dreamed and trained for this moment over the previous 3-4 years and it had recently dawned on him that his dream had become a reality. We are very proud of him for daring to dream and for doing the hours and hours of hard work training to actually achieve his dream.
The tour got underway when we landed in Sydney at 10.30am Aussie time and after getting through customs reasonably quickly we met up with the other families and riders in the NZ team . No big dramas at customs as the bikes were spotless. However, you expect the weather to be better in Australia than NZ, its just the way it is, sadly it wasn't. The great big 'doona' was keeping the sun away and the temperature gauge was struggling to get to 14C. What a bummer and lucky for Chrissy I packed her ski jacket - it proved a good move as she wore it for the whole 2 weeks! But hey this trip wasn't about the weather or indeed us, it was about the NZ Mighty 11 BMX team and their determination to beat Australia in a test series over the weekend of June 6/7.
The Team. Left to Right - Josh, Abby, Liam, Malcolm (coach), Connor, Brent, Tahlia and Dylan.The families all signed up for camper vans, which was a mission for some of us, unlike the Fox's who had rented a small building on wheels, and they were treated with pomp and ceremony due to the fact they were propping up the local economy! It was decided we should find somewhere to camp for the night and thanks to Howard, the Aussie team coach who was not so secretly spying on our camp, we found a place on the way to the MacArthur BMX track.
Once settled in we all headed off into Sydney on the train. This was an experience in itself as some of the group had not been to Sydney before which created quite an element of excitement. The ticket man at the station almost caused a scandal by being sooo slooow distributing the tickets that half of us almost missed the train, however a quiet word from Chrissy, don't cross her :-), got his arse into gear and we just made it on to the train as the doors closed!
The next day dawned grey, cold and miserable, the only good thing was that it wasn't raining. Man it was really cold, not what you'd expect in Australia! We headed south west to the MacArther BMX track around 10am. this was to be the first riding opportunity for the team at a special meeting organised by the MacArthur and Liverpool BMX clubs. The team of Liam (C), Dylan, Brent, Joshua, Connor and the scholarship girls Tahlia and Abby, travelled in a van with a bike trailer ably driven by Ces Hill (Mgr) and Malcolm Mconie (coach). The families supporting the team were travelling in a convoy that snaked down the highway like some overgrown anaconda, bringing up the rear.
We had a good afternoon of riding at McArthur and at about 5pm loaded up the camper vans and headed off to The Entrance, a boutique beach area about 2 hours north of Sydney (map). Once again the convoy was on the road lead by the Fox's building on wheels. We let them go first because they had a GPS navigation unit on board and it was raining cats and dogs and none of us had driven in Sydney before and we had to get from south west of the city to north east of the city. A serious challenge in hindsight. The Fox's managed to get us all to The Entrance safe and sound without any incidents, we ran a couple of orange/slightly red lights (I swear they were orange sir!) to keep the convoy together but no harm was done. We arrived about 8.30pm at the camp ground, set up camp, had some food and crashed for the night. It had been a long day and driving in the torrential rain for 3 hours had taken its toll. Th next morning was slightly better weather wise, still the big doona of cloud cover but not raining. All the kids went in search of a games room while the adults put brekky together. After an hour or so several kids came back for breakfast, Liam included. He had won a cellphone in some computer game they had found so was rather excited given his brother had had to wait until he was at college to get his cellphone. Chrissy and I simply glanced at each other and rolled our eye's. Unfortunately for Liam he has to buy a SIM card for it if he wants it to work. Mean parents.
We left The Entrance in the morning and headed for Maitland BMX club in Tenambit, about a one and a half hour drive north (map). We were hosted at a race meeting by the Maitland club and the riders were all billeted out to local families, a fantastic cultural experience for the NZ riders. This was, in the riders opinion, the best track we visited over the duration of the tour. The members of the Maitland club were fantastic putting on a big BBQ, even though it was cold and overcast, and we all had a great time. The kiwi parents group were allowed to stay at the BMX track complex so the camper vans were arranged into a semi-circle to keep the wind out and a couple of gazebo's were erected in case of rain. The kids and their billet families left around 8pm and the adults in the camper vans settled down for a really good bonding session, consuming a few bevvies along the way (eh lads!) with the stayers eventually getting to bed around 2am.
We were up again at 8am, some with a blood shot view of the early morning and in need of urgent re-hydration. After a quick shower we packed up, the billeted kids were dropped off and we were on the road again by 9am. The destination was Manning Valley BMX club in Taree (map). Firstly though we headed into Newcastle to have a look around and to at least say we had been there, done that. Reminded a few in the team of Newcastle in England - the steel mill and the port dominated the skyline. We were back on the road again at lunch time, destination Taree. Ces, the team manager, decided we should travel the "scenic" route to Taree and the Manning Valley BMX club. So off we went on a drive that should have taken a couple of hours, but because we took the "scenic" route out to the coast and it took about three and a half to four hours! Now "scenic" in NZ is exactly that, beautiful scenery and well worth the extra km's. "Scenic" in Aussie, in this case anyway was simply a longer drive than the more direct route. Needless to say Ces was banned by Chrissy from making any driving route decisions in the future . The track at Manning Valley was wet so the riders only got to do some gates training. We were then hosted by the club to (another) BBQ before the riders headed off to their respective billets. The camper van squad drove 5 minutes to a very comfortable camping ground on the other side of the river and after the late night session the night before, decided a quiet night catching up on chores like washing was a good move.
We headed out of Taree about 10am the next morning destined for Sawtell, just south of Coff's Harbour (map). The Sawtell track looked pretty awesome but sadly was far too wet to contemplate riding. This part of NSW had been pounded by wind and rain storms a week earlier and hadn't managed to dry out. That night we were hosted to a BBQ at the home of Michael, Jan, Laney, Dave and Morgan. Michael owns/runs JRCycles and SpeedFX clothing with Jan, who incidently is a kiwi hailing from the mainland (Timaru). We all had a great night eating, drinking and spending our money in Michael's mobile BMX shop!
The next morning, after packing up, we were finally (once Ces and Malcolm got themselves in order, always waiting for the coach and manager!) enroute to Casino the venue for the test series (map). Apparently Casino is the "beef" capital of NSW and in fact Liam's billets worked for the local meat works which was the mainstay of the localeconomy. The region was totally water logged after receiving a pounding from the storms a week earlier so we were expecting the worst in terms of the track condition. Turned out we were right to be concerned because when we arrived on the Wednesday it was virtually un-ridable, severely washed out and quite boggy in places. There would need to be a determined effort from the local club to bring it up to a reasonable standard by the Saturday when the racing was due to kick off. Over the next couple of days and with some help from Kiwi Dave Fox the track was prepared to its best possible condition given the circumstances.
The team, along with coach, manager and a couple of parents went to DreamWorld on the Gold Coast on the Thursday for a day of R&R. Chrissy and I along with John and Sharleen went to Byron Bay for the day. Interesting place - seemed to be a hangout for the rich and famous surrounded by surfers and druggies. Not much to see to be honest, nice beach and some nice property was my memory of Byron Bay. It would have been more spectacular I'm sure had the weather been nicer.
The test series racing began in earnest on Saturday June 6th. The Kiwi and Aussie teams raced 3 test series moto's on the saturday and 2 moto's on the Sunday. Thanks to some super riding by the Kiwi team we were leading by 68 points to 52 at the end of the day. Everything was looking positive but we were all well aware of the traditional Aussie fighting spirit. Bring on Sunday we all said! After the first moto on Sunday we dropped 5 points to the Aussies and were 11 points ahead - 85 to 74. We needed 16 points to win the test series and knew realistically in the last race we had to get 2 riders in the first four to take the trophy. Aussie needed a a better result than they had achieved in the previous four moto's to keep the trophy. The stage was set for a very exciting final moto. The random computer lane draw did the Kiwi's no favours at all, Aussie had lanes 1,2,3,4 and we had lanes 5,6,7,8. It took us back to the rank lane draw we received in the final moto at labour weekend last year where the Aussies won that test series by 1 point. The gate dropped, Brent (NZ), Andrew (Aussie) and Liam shot to the front round the first corner. Into the second corner, Brent and Andrew side by side, Liam slotted in behind, Andrew went low underneath Brent and rode Brent over the back of the jump and off the track! That was the test series there and then, done and dusted. The Kiwi placings were 3,5,7,8 for a total of 13 points. Once again the test series trophy had slipped from our grasp after a determined fight back by the Aussies. Final scores were Aussie 100 - Kiwi's 95. The Kiwi's were gutted and for Liam, Chrissy and I it was doubly gutting because we had been pipped at the post for the second time! Remember labour weekend 2008?
There are some great photo's of the test series on http://www.xbr.com.au/events/2009BMXXTREME_MightyElevens/index.htm
Watch the haka challenge at Casino BMX track led by Liam -
The 10 day trip had lots of highlights like Ces's scenic drive route, crocodile pies, rain and cold, some great laughs, some serious nerves, some memorable moments and some dodgey ones that we won't mention, however overall the Kiwi group had a fantastic cultural experience, even though we lost the test series. Many thanks to all our new friends in Aussie for the hospitality and support provided to all the Kiwi's on this trip. We will see you at the North Island Champs in Cambridge NZ where I'm sure Trans Tasman rivalry will be renewed!
