The Park City High School mountain-bike club had been practicing for almost six weeks. All of the riders had been waiting patiently for the first race of the season and for some, the first race of their lives. A few seemed relaxed, but most were nervous and apprehensive about toeing the start line Saturday morning. The excitement only built as the team rode through the venue on Friday to check it out and do a pre-race interval workout. Saturday morning came and the weather at Round Valley was perfect. The venue was buzzing early with teams setting up their pits and the organizers corralling volunteers and making last minute adjustments to the venue. The registration tent was busy, but Park City had taken care of that on Friday night. The racers started showing up at 9 a.m., and you could feel the tension and excitement in the air. Thirty teams erected pop-up tents, lubed chains, pumped up tires, and went for laps on the course. Park City had 20 riders registered and was the biggest team at the race. The girls did their warm up and then sat down for their pre-race meeting followed by a calming pep talk from local pro racer Evelyn Dong, who had the girls laughing and relaxed and ready to rock. Brenna Egan lined up with only two other varsity girls and proceeded to dominate the competition, but not before Quinn Graves and Lindsay Richards owned the sophomore girls class with first- and- fourth-places finishes, respectively. As the girls set the bar high, going 2-for-2 in the first wave of races, the boys prepared. The second wave was large, and featured sophomore and freshman boys. These fields were big enough to be split into two divisions based on team size, and the Division 1 Park City freshmen boys' team showed that it meant business by lining up across the front line.

Most would never see anything but the back of the PCHS jerseys.

Danny Fendler skidded up to the start line after playing an early morning soccer game in Orem and proceeded to take the win followed closely by Simon Hopkins in second. Jake Hunsaker (fifth), Anthony Buoscio (10th), and Zach Brown (13th) rounded out the finishers. At this point, Park City was 3-for-3, and it looked like the Miners could sweep the five races entered in. The third wave featured the varsity and junior varsity boys. This was the largest wave, with eight JV and four varsity riders. This would be the stiffest competition of the day and the Park City boys were giddy with excitement after cheering the girls and freshmen boys to victory.

These fields started at a blistering pace and just got faster. Noah Putt, 14, showed that his road-racing skills transferred well to the dirt, taking second place in JV followed closely by David Domonoske in fourth-place. Downhill racer and cross-country newbie Ethan Reynolds rounded out the podium in fifth. Riley Walker and Patrick Johnson followed suit by finishing in the top 10 in eighth and ninth place, while Riley Broussard endured two crashes to finish 14th. Nic Kincaid was competing in his first competitive event of any kind and impressed, finishing 23rd overall in a stacked Division 1 field. Ray Leavitt rode a stellar race in the Division 2 JV category after getting tangled up with four other riders on the start line. Leavitt came 16th in a field of 60 in his first mountain-bike race ever. He raced the entire race with only one lens in his sunglasses after the start line crash had knocked one out. The Park City varsity squad continued the now-established Park City tradition with Matthew Turner nailing a third-place finish behind scorching fast Zach Peterson of South Davis. Ralf Carestia, coming off of a knee injury, finished seventh, while Daniel Riley and Luke Adams finished off the day in ninth and 14th respectively. When the dust settled the Miners had multiple podium appearances and pulled on three series leader jerseys. Park City had a tough time fitting the whole team on the podium as it took the top step in the team competition, beating out Alta High by a slim but, comfortable margin. The club couldn't function without the generous support of its sponsors: Cole Sport, Mountain Velo, Endurance, Turner Gas, White Pine Touring, Jans, US Bank, and the Park City Point 2 Point deserves a lot of credit for getting behind these kids and helping them get rolling in the dirt.