SILOAM SPRINGS — Under the Haas Hall tent set up next to the grassy straightaway finish line, Jacob Smithpeters was frantically searching for his cycling jersey as the start time for his mountain biking race rapidly approached.
“I cannot find my [regular] jersey at all,” Smithpeters said to Kimberly Seay, Haas Hall’s mountain biking coach.
Luckily, she had two spares he could choose from.
The jersey Smithpeters was wearing at the time, a blue jersey with “Arkansas Leader” posted at the front, was worn by all the top-tier racers at the first Arkansas NICA race of the season Sunday at Sager Creek.
Smithpeters was certainly among that elite group. He is the defending mountain biking state champion in the varsity boys’ division.
Although most of his competition was well aware of that, Smithpeters didn’t want the leader jersey to put an added target on his back. He always looks for small tactical advantages like that, he said.
“There’re some guys out here I’m gonna have to watch, so I might either sit in behind them or go ahead and take the lead,” Smithpeters said. “The person in front is gonna have a good advantage because he knows he’s not gonna be taken down by any crashes in front of him, so it’s going to be about separating [myself ] from the other riders out there.”
Once he settled on his jersey choice, Smithpeters buckled on his white cycling helmet and attached a white rider marker with the number 57 to the front of his handlebars. Smithpeters’ bike, a teal-
blue Yeti ASR, was one of the nicer bikes in the grass field where the race started and ended. He hoped it would prove its worth on a day where it had already rained and threatened to dump more.
“I’m going to be a little scared on some of these corners about wiping out and washing out,” Smithpeters said, a foreshadowing of what would befall several of the competitors during the varsity boys race.
He went out to warm up and wasn’t seen again for a while.
Seay wasn’t concerned. She knows Smithpeters’ pre-race ritual.
“He’s probably in the zone,” she said. “That’s how he gets.” Haas Hall’s reputation as one of the top academic institutions in the country somewhat overshadows the charter school’s athletic programs, but the mountain biking team has finished second in several recent races despite being comprised of members going to different campuses in Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale and Rogers.
This makes the team unique compared to the 10-12 other school-sanctioned teams that typically compete in these circuits, but Smithpeters’ tenacity was a driving force in making the bikers grow stronger together, especially those new to the intense sport of mountain biking.
“He is so kind and considerate to our younger riders, and they all look up to him,” Seay said. “I look up to him because he even pushes me to be better on the bike. We have a drill where riders have to finish a circuit in a certain amount of time, and Jacob is doing three laps while others
are doing one lap. They see him do that.”
As the main event got closer to starting on Sunday, the announcer began to call roll for riders to move to their respective positions. Smithpeters, now wearing a basic Haas Hall jersey borrowed from his coach, came flying through to the front. He sat in position and calmly talked to the other riders, most of whom likely knew they’d be seeing his backside for most of the race before losing sight of him entirely.
When the race finally started, Smithpeters got off to a bad start and almost crashed another competitor, but he recovered to sit tight in fourth place during the first of four laps. The trail converted into damp dirt as it dove into the woods, and the only sounds
riders could hear were the sound of shifting gears, the buzz of insects, screaming spectators and bells that indicated when a rider was passing through.
The twists and turns of the soft-surface track gave Smithpeters plenty of opportunities to move up toward the front of the pack.
Once Smithpeters got going at full speed, he and two other riders had separated themselves from the pack. Caden Parker commanded the lead from the very beginning, and Brian Pendegraff was closely behind. The three leaders continued to barrel ahead until the final lap, when the Haas Hall star decided to make a move.
Smithpeters passed Pendegraff for the front, but Parker’s lead was insurmountable. He
flew through the finish line with raised arms, and Smithpeters came through a short time later to claim the No. 2 spot in the race. In the open area next to the finish line, he was greeted by a group of Haas Hall well-wishers as he peeled his jersey off to cool down. As other racers finished up, many came to congratulate him.
“Jacob is a very friendly, warm, genuine person,” Seay said. “He’s not looking for attention or accolades. When you shake his hand, you can tell, ‘OK, I’ve made a connection with someone’. It’s easy to like Jacob right away, and most everyone I know does.”
Whether it was fatigue or humility, Smithpeters didn’t have much to say about his performance Sunday. Maybe he’s gotten used to winning, or perhaps he just knows what 14 hours of intense mountain bike training per week should garner in terms of results.
“Overall, it was a good day on the bike,” he said.
He’ll continue to put in the work, and more top-three finishes will keep coming his way as the NICA season continues.