BATTLING with tough weather conditions and on minimal sleep, Melaleuca Park Primary School students made a memorable debut at the Murray Bridge 24 hour pedal prix over the weekend.
In a competition that ended in a nail biting finish, the team of 13 gave it their all to come home with a win against other Lower South East teams.
Striving towards their goal since the start of the year, teacher Nick Mattschoss said it was a very tough challenge with a messy and chaotic start.
“Due to the strong wind and heavy rain the track was not ready until four hours after we were meant to start,” he said.
“Then when we did start it was chaos, our first rider got to the corner and there was big congestion – he had to wait around 30 minutes to get through.”
However, this did not dampen the students’ spirits as they fought hard to beat their top rival – Naracoorte Primary School.
“Our aim was to come back with the highest rank from the Lower South East and when we saw Moorak wasn’t going to be there this year we thought we might have a chance,” Mr Mattschoss said.
“But then we realised that Naracoorte had beaten Moorak a few times and we knew it was going to be difficult.”
In front of the Naracoorte team by eight laps at around midnight, they thought it would be an easy finish but throughout the night Naracoorte began to creep back.
“It was a very tight race against Naracoorte, but that just made it more exciting and fun,” Year 7 student Zayne said.
“I did get pretty tired throughout the night though, that made it harder because at times I felt like I was dozing off.”
Playing cat and mouse for the last couple of hours, the Melaleuca Park Primary School team managed to scrape ahead of its rival, beating the Naracoorte team by only two laps.
“I am very proud of the students, a lot of training went into it and they really showed how much they have improved since the last race at Loxton,” Mr Mattschoss said.
“Everyone put in a really great effort, we ended up doing 204 laps in total with five of the students doing over 25 laps each.
“We even beat some of the high schools, including Mount Gambier High School.”
Still basking in the glory of their recent win, Zayne said he was looking forward to the next opportunity to race.
“I definitely want to be involved with it again, it was so much fun,” he said.
