The first round of the Downhill Midwest Series kicked off last weekend at Shepherd Mountain in Missouri!
Racers from around the region came out to enjoy some amazing spring weather at the infamously rocky trails of Shepherd Mountain.
Cat 1 and 2 riders got to race Mineshaft. This trail, although categorized as a blue trail, has a good mix of high speed, tight, and technical sections! As one of the local favorites, racers were very excited to race this trail! The start line skipped the flatter top portion of the trail, and we never heard anybody complain about that haha.
Cat 3 riders raced Trolly Track! A longer green trail, this track offered a wide variety as well. From big sweeping corners, to high speed chunk! Racers had their hands full keeping themselves, and their bikes rolling all weekend.
Lower registration numbers allowed riders to get lots of practice time over Friday and Saturday! High lines into corners were getting burnt in, new lines were found between the tape, and riders were getting creative with the track!
With all this practice time, riders took the initiative to stop and look for creative lines!
Friday night the Wheels Up Youth Enduro program came out and lit up the jumps for a fun jam session! Riders got to hit up the trails at night as a fundraiser for the youth program.
Seeding on Saturday had riders throwing down wild times!! Local trail builder and ripper Jordan Scheiderich had a big get off that unfortunately took him out of contention for the weekend. Everyone was curious who would put down the fastest time between him and Henry Lee for the weekend. Henry was 10 seconds faster than the rest of the field on Saturday with a 1:49! For the women, Amelia Renaldi was the fastest in seeding with a 2:14!
Sunday was another beautiful day and racers were ready to rip bright and early!
Sparkles are a key to any good race day!!
Cat 3 started off the morning with Jack Smith IV throwing down the fastest time on the course with a 4:41!
A special shoutout to Merrick Smith, the youngest racer out there this weekend at just 6 years old!
After the Cat 3 group completed, Cat 1 & 2 group got out for their practice laps.
Racing went down and many riders pulled faster laps in their race runs than their seeding runs! Sam Jory went 4 seconds faster than in seeding for a 1:56:91 for the fastest Cat 2 racer, and third fastest time on the day! Carson Brooks snuck in just in front of Sam with a 1:56:78! Such tight racing! Then Henry Lee came in with another smoking lap for the fastest time on the day with a 1:51:44!
In the women’s field Emilie Flanigan went almost 4 seconds faster with a 2:13:94 to slot into third. Saturday’s fastest, Amelia Renaldi, went a second faster on race day with a 2:13:50 to slot into the second fastest woman of the day. And Duluth’s Lili Regenold put down a heater of a run to get a 2:12:01!! All three women were so close!
At the end of the day, racing was tight and riders had fun! Couldn’t have asked for more!
This race couldn’t have been possible without the Shepherd Mountain crew helping everyone get up the mountain!
As well as all of our amazing sponsors!
Title Sponsor
Photos provided by the amazing photographers Dylan Juchemich and Ariana Sanchez!!
Racers can find their photos up on Roots and Rain!
Thank you again to everyone who came out! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did!
-Alex