Crossing the line in the 21^st position after lap one, Barnes and McGhee immediately went to work making passes toward the front. On lap two, the NAC Racing duo approached a bottleneck in the woods where they cut a fresh line around the chaos to pass the remainder of the XC1 Pro Class.

From there, Barnes put the hammer down and continued to claw his way into the top five as the two-lap card came out. Just before the white flag, Barnes moved into the 4^th place position and maintained his spot through the end of the one-hour race, finishing only 23 seconds behind 3^rd place.

"We are very happy with a 4^th place finish," Barnes said. "It could have been a little bit better if we would have started better but we're happy to make a jump in the Championship Standings and will keep aiming for a spot on the podium."

With a season-best finish of 4^th place, Barnes and McGhee now sit 5^th in the XC1 Pro Championship Standings with only two rounds remaining this season.

"Going into the John Penton we felt confident that nothing would go wrong - we replaced everything that could break and worked hard getting this machine 100 percent," McGhee said. "After the first lap I knew we were going to be in the top five. This was our best finish so far and we hope to make it on the podium before the season is up."