Michael immediately put his head down and charged his way into the XC1 Pro class riders, where he checked in with the overall lead after one lap of racing. Michael latched on to the top premier class riders to further extend his lead over the 2nd place rider in the XC2 class. After three hard hours of racing, Michael finished over two minutes ahead of Trevor Bollinger to capture his second victory of the season. Additionally, the West Virginia native earned 5th overall for the day - his best overall finish of the year. 

"I got a decent start and got into the lead about three miles in and kind of got in my groove early on and tried to push as hard as I could without making mistakes," Michael said. "My goal was to get out front by myself and then I got hooked up with some of the XC1 guys which was key. It feels good to be in the center of the podium again, I feel like I've been riding well and I'm hoping to end the season on a good note with another win in Indiana."

DeLong maintained a 2nd place position through the first two hours of racing until he made a small mistake and dropped back to 4th after getting stuck on an uphill on lap five. As the white flag flew, DeLong made a big push to put himself back into contention for the final podium position as he went head-to-head with Nick Davis in the final moments of the race. DeLong and Davis swapped the 3rd place position back-and-forth several times near the end of the race but it was DeLong who made the last pass stick to capture 3rd place in the class.