Despite a year marred by COVID-19, local motorbike racing superstars Tom and Sam Drane have finished the year on a high note with podium finishes in South Australia earlier this month.
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Sam debuted in the Oceania Junior Cup as a wild card over the weekend of December 5-6.
He placed 11th in his first race, he placed second in his second race and placed 11th in his third race.
This was the first round of the Oceania Junior Cup that Sam has competed in and said he was happy with his results, particularly with the podium finish.
He will be competing in the full 2022 series of the Oceania Junior Cup and said he is excited to see how he will do next year.
With having more experience in dirt track riding, Sam said the road surface provided more grip and was fun to ride on.
While Sam was competing in the Oceania Cup, Tom was racing in the R3 Cup and Supersport 300.
Tom had a range of placings in the races hosted over the weekend of December 5-6 for the two events.
Tom placed in second place for his first race in the 300 Supersport, coming in fifth place in the second race and in third place in race three.
In the R3 championship event, Tom finished in sixth place in the first race, fifth place in the second race and fourth place in the third round of the event.
He placed eighth overall in the R3 championship, which he puts down to missing a round due to racing overseas.
This weekend in racing followed on from a stint in Indonesia racing in the 2021 season of the Asia Talent Cup.
Tom was competing in Round 3 and 4 of the Cup which featured racers from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Thailand and Turkey.
Tom said his best result was 12th place across the two rounds and ended up with a personal best in the last race with a time of one minute and 45 seconds, across a four kilometre long track.
Despite COVID interrupting their season this year, Tom said it was a pretty good season.
Though, the closure of many of the road tracks in Sydney during COVID did stuff them around a bit, Tom said.
Both Sam and Tom will take a break over Christmas and the new year period before getting back into racing.
Tom said that they will be racing across both dirt track and road races, but will predominately focus on road races.
They are both intending to travel over to compete in the USA next year.
In the new year, Tom will be moving to a bigger bike across both road and dirt track races.
He will be going from a 250cc bike to a 450cc bike in dirt track events and will be moving up to a 600cc bike from a 300cc bike.
Sam will still be competing in the 85-150cc category for his races next year.
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