By Amy Jespersen
The Carbon Mountain Biking Team, along with 2,500 other riders, their coaches, ride leaders and their families, descended upon Cedar City over the weekend to compete in the state championships. The team had 14 racers qualify for the state race, the most athletes Carbon MTB has sent to state since its inception eight years ago. The course was the most difficult state course yet with a mile and a half of uphill road and numerous, technically-challenging rock gardens and crevices to navigate at a full sprint.
Friday morning started off with Carson Taylor, Monson Loveless and Cole Arthur racing in the Freshman A category, a group of 380 riders divided into three waves. All three had amazing races and finished 29th, 37th and 111th, respectively.
Following right behind was Freshman B racers Michael Weber and Kayden Dunn. Weber experienced some chain troubles in the race but kept going strong, passed 40 people and finished in a very respectable 43rd place out of 147 riders. Dunn was having a fantastic race until his tire went flat a couple miles before the finish. He rode it all the way to the end and finished in 86th. Both riders have had some trouble in the last couple races, but overall had a successful season.
Carson Palmer and Ryker Christensen were up next in their first ever state race, competing in the JV-C boys’ category. Palmer finished his first crash-free race of the season and finished in the middle of the pack of 200 racers. Christensen was able to move up a few places and finished 81st.
The funnest race of the day may have been the Senior Open. This race is for all senior riders who didn’t qualify for state but are able to compete anyway. These riders had a great time, competed hard and showed off to the huge crowd lining the jump line with some amazing tricks and a few crashes. Will Clark finished a very respectable 107th out of 300 riders in the final race of his high school career.
Day 2 started off with Carbon’s lone JV-B rider, James Tullis. Tullis has been training hard all season and it paid off. After starting behind 59 riders, Tullis had an incredible race and finished in 16th place out of 237 riders.
Carbon’s last race was the JV-A boys with Andrew Loveless starting on the front line, Tacoma Smith two rows back and Garrett Murray starting in 66th. After three laps totaling over 16 miles and about an hour and 10 minutes of full out sprinting, Smith finished in sixth place and Loveless in 10th, both riders ending in podium positions. Murray went over the bar, twisted his handlebar and got scraped up, but kept on fighting and left it all on the course for an 83rd place finish out of 350 riders.
Carbon riders Max McCourt earned the IronMan award for not missing a single race in six years and Andrew Loveless received the Spread the Stoke award, sponsored by local company IGotPoop, for his positive attitude and sharing his excitement of mountain biking. Head coach Mark Jespersen was recognized for his work in getting the Price course ready after a flash flood washed out a couple parts of the trail the night before the race.
It’s been an incredible season for the Carbon racers, both girls and boys, and they look forward to next season with many returning and new athletes. Get out and ride your bike!
