Lucas Adcock
Staff Writer
Snowshoe Mountain was alive last weekend as engines roared to life in the upscale Village at Snowshoe Resort. The 2026 Grand National Cross Country (GNCC Racing) Series descended on West Virginia for Round 9 of its 13-race AMA National Championship season. Over the course of three electric days, riders, families and off-road fans from across the country gathered at one of motorsport’s most remarkable venues to witness what the GNCC circuit proudly calls: America’s Toughest Race. True to its nickname, Snowshoe delivered.
Snowshoe Mountain is no ordinary race course, and there’s a reason they’re calling Round 9 the toughest of them all. The terrain combines thick, hardwood forest, with rocky technical sections, open ski slopes, and the kind of loamy dirt that turns dangerous with even a hint of moisture – and it was raining. The real action was a few miles in, down into Howard’s Hole. Between the massive tree roots, mud bogs and the “mud fleas” – i.e., GNCC fans that double as obstacles – make it one of the most difficult parts of the course.
The race made its GNCC debut in 2007 and hasn’t left the calendar since, drawing its identity from the legendary Blackwater 100, the original GNCC event founded by Dave Coombs, with its first single event in Davis. The Blackwater 100 created the gold standard for off-road suffering. In a nod to that heritage, the Snowshoe event abandons the traditional dead-engine field start, instead sending riders off in groups of five from the main village road, engines running, every ten seconds. It is a spectacle unlike anything else in American motorsport.
The weekend kicked off on Friday afternoon with Round 3 of the Specialized eMTB National Championship, as electric mountain bike competitors tackled a dedicated course carved through the Snowshoe terrain. The eMTB series has been a rapidly growing part of the GNCC calendar, and Snowshoe’s unique mountain environment provides a demanding and dramatic backdrop for the riders. Racers navigated elevation changes that pushed both machine and battery capacity, while spectators lined the course to catch the silent – yet still fierce – charge for the checkered flag.
Friday evening, the resort village transformed into a festival. The famous Village parties came alive with music, vendors, and the aroma of drinks that the buzz of a race-weekend in full swing produces. Howard’s Hole was packed well into the night as riders and fans alike soaked in the atmosphere before the main events ahead.
Saturday belonged to the ATVs. With the Youth ATV race launching early in the morning under the foggy mountain skies, the hillsides echoed all day with the sharp crack of four-wheelers attacking the Snowshoe course. The later-morning ATV race followed at 10 a.m. before the main event where the pro ATV riders launched at 1 p.m. The format, unique to Snowshoe among GNCC stops, features no micro racing (ages four to eight) keeping the full focus on ATV competition from youth to professional.
Saturday was wet, muddy and noisy – the best chaotic atmosphere for racing. Throughout the opening laps for the XC1 Open Pro, positions changed hands amid the rooted, technical sections that make Snowshoe so punishing on both rider and machine. Competitors naviga- ted the slick black loam on the shaded sections and the drenched ski slope, requiring constant adaptation as the course evolved over nearly three hours of racing.
During the Pro ATV race, the XC1 Open Pro class produced the kind of high-stakes drama that has come to define this venue. Coming into Round 9, the championship picture had remained tightly contested, with Phoenix Racing Yamaha’s Brycen Neal, and Stewart Boys Racing’s Wyatt Wilkin, locked in a season-long battle for points supremacy. Both riders entered Snowshoe hungry for a win before the series’ summer break, and neither was prepared to concede an inch on the mountain’s unforgiving terrain. Ultimately, Wyatt Wilkin conquered Snowshoe Mountain, earning the overall ATV win.
If Saturday belonged to the ATVs, Sunday was the motorcycle riders’ time to prove their mettle on Cheat Mountain. The 1 p.m. Pro Bike race brought out the full depth of the XC1 Open Pro field, headlined by a compelling storyline entering Round 9: Rocky Mountain Red Bear Kawasaki Team Green’s Steward Baylor Jr. had won at Powerline Park just weeks earlier and carried serious momentum into Snowshoe, while his teammate Grant Baylor and Am Pro Yamaha’s Liam Draper had both shown podium-caliber. speed throughout the season.
The motorcycle course at Snowshoe is widely regarded as the most technically demanding on the entire GNCC calendar. A rocky and rooted singletrack winds through dense hardwood forest before spilling onto the open ski runs that offer brief respite, only to plunge back into the trees and chaos. Riders battled not just each other but the mountain itself, as the course’s soil grew more slick through the afternoon.
The GNCC report stated that “after three hours of racing, brothers Grant Baylor and Steward Baylor Jr. were battling with Liam Draper in what was a sprint to the checkered flag, as Grant Baylor came out on top. Draper came through second as Steward Baylor Jr. was third.”
The WXC Women’s class brought additional championship intrigue to Sunday, with FMF KTM Factory Racing’s Brandy Richards – who’d won at Powerline Park – targeting another points-haul heading into the break. Korie Steede, Richards’ top rival in the standings, was equally determined not to surrender ground before the series went dark for the summer.
The 2026 edition of the Yamaha Racing Snowshoe GNCC once again made its case as the marquee event of the season, delivering three days of high-altitude drama that will be talked about long after the series reconvenes in the fall.
