After competing in their first ever mountain biking race a couple weeks ago at Soldier Hollow, the Red Rock Raptors, Kanab’s composite youth mountain bike racing team (grades 7-12) again geared up and headed to their second race of the season at the Panguitch NICA race course just west of Red Canyon.
Left to right:
The happy Red Rock Raptors after a long day of racing. Photo courtesy of Mike Downward.
Gwen Espinoza finishing the race strong.
More than 1,000 student riders attended Saturday’s race. Photo by Harry Barber.
The 5.7-mile racecourse at Red Canyon transformed from a normally peaceful, serene environment into a bustling small city with 1000+ student riders and another four to five thousand supporters on Saturday, September 7. The atmosphere was electric, and the competition was fierce, with teams from across our region including all the St. George schools, Hurricane, American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Panguitch, Beaver and several other teams competing.
All our riders did an awesome job and improved on their lap times from the first race at Soldier Hollow. The Raptors had 12 riders racing at this event across various divisions. Our Jr. Devo (seventh and eighth grade) riders raced first with Gwen Espinoza and Penny Espinoza starting off the day for the team pulling in at 49th and 56th places. Trace Staples raced next in the eighth-grade boys division where he pulled a personal best time and placed ninth in a field of 56 riders with a single lap time of 30:25 just 12 seconds from placing him on the podium. After that Bob Keller raced in the seventh-grade boys division and placed 40th out of 71 riders with a strong time and finish. All the jr. devo riders raced a single lap around the course.
Our high school riders took to the course next all racing two laps around the racecourse starting with Ryan Downward. After placing first in his division two weeks ago at Soldier Hollow, Ryan moved up three divisions to face much stiffer competition. He started the race at the back of the pack, a crowded field of 71 riders, and over the course of a very exciting race passed 69 riders to finish in second place just 14 seconds behind the first-place rider with a first and second lap time of 24:20 and 23:39 respectively. Following Ryan, Payzli Bauer, Brooklyn Bauer and Kaylee Downward raced the two laps with Kaylee coming in 19th, Brooklyn coming in 24th and Payzli coming in 25th. All three of our high school girls set personal best times on this course. Mason Barber, Elijah Heaton and Korver Staples raced next coming in 20th, 25th and 31st places respectively in their division. Our last high school rider for the day was Ayden Palmer racing two laps in his freshman boys division where he placed 20th in his field.
The Raptors’ next race is in two weeks on a Saturday in Beaver where we are looking forward to seeing our riders continue to make gains and impress as they represent our team and community. For more information on the team, check out our Facebook page (Red Rock Raptors Kanab Mountain Bike Team) where more photos and videos of the team’s events are posted.
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