The desert outside Boulder City does not care about your bracket position. It does not care about your qualifying time, your sponsorship deal, or how many races you have won before. It gives you moon dust and rocks and a hill that will send you sideways if you breathe on it wrong, and it lets the riders sort themselves out from there.
That is the environment that greeted the pro field at Let It Ride 5 on March 28, 2026. Wind cutting across the course. Sun hammering down on a landscape that looked, as one rider put it, like the surface of another planet. The kind of conditions that separate the people who say they love off-road racing from the people who actually do.
By the end of the day, Joshua Fagerness of Rochester, Washington had answered that question about himself in the clearest possible terms.
The Man Behind the Monstah
Joe Cantalicio photo - Owner of Wheel Zen Rides and organizer of Let it Ride - Photo credit: Seth Johnson
Joe Cantalicio did not find this venue on a map. He found it the way most good things in motorsports get found -- by knowing what he was looking for and recognizing it when he saw it.
The property outside Boulder City spent more than a decade sitting idle after its years as an outdoor motocross venue. Cantalicio, a Philadelphia transplant now based in Las Vegas and the owner of WheelZen Rides, saw something in it that others had overlooked. The hills. The terrain. The space. The desert.
"You've got to have a little different terrain than everybody else," he said. "What better way to race than through the desert?"
Let It Ride launched five years ago out of that instinct, and Cantalicio has been building it -- literally -- ever since. This year's course expanded from roughly a one-minute layout to nearly two minutes of racing, with new features constructed by his builder Zach Zinn, who Cantalicio credits with being able to put together course obstacles in the kind of timeframe most people would use just to unload a truck.
The course includes sandy washes, embedded rock segments, berms, bridges, drop jumps, and the feature that every rider in the field was already talking about before the gate dropped: the Monstah. A massive descent that has become the defining character of this event.
Cantalicio's standard for what goes on the course is simple. He rides it himself first.
"I don't put anything out on the course that I don't ride myself. Whether it's a gap jump, a shark fin jump to a downhill, bridges, whatever it is -- including the Monstah. I ride it all. I figure if I can do it, these pros should have no problem." He paused. "I'm not a spring chicken. I'm 51."
Let It Ride 5 drew approximately 60 competitors and 40 spectators to the Nevada desert, with riders traveling from Washington, California, Nevada, Hawaii, and beyond. For Cantalicio, that reach is less a metric than a mission statement.
"The best compliment I get every year is that I help progress people's riding. That's all you can really ask for, and give back."
The Course
Racers dropping into the defining feature of Let It Ride"The Monstah" - Photo credit: Nick Gasmena
If you have never been to the EUC track outside Boulder City, the name says most of what you need to know. The Monstah is the defining feature -- a steep descent carved out of desert terrain that has been ridden, chewed up, and reshaped by years of racing. This year it bit harder than usual.
"Prior years we had a right lip that you could kind of hop into and naturally flow into the Monstah," said Law Laxina, a Las Vegas-based veteran competing in his first USA EUC sanctioned event. "This year we kind of ate that away over time with all of our racing."
The rest of the track was no less demanding. Zac Darnell, who posted the fastest qualifying time coming into race day, described a layout built around narrow lanes, heavy whoops in the straightaways, and features that rewarded precise line selection above everything else. Among those features: a triple-step staircase section the riders were calling Stairs to Hell, a gap jump that some riders were clearing entirely, and the Monstah waiting at the bottom of it all.
Drone view of the course at Let It Ride - Photo credit: Seth Johnson
"Every feature I came into, I was just smashing the brakes before I hit it and still over-sending it," Fagerness said. "For one-wheelers, what they're doing out there is insane. For us it feels like almost twice as big."
Matt Burt, racing on his KingSong F18, described the Monstah in the plainest possible terms. "I feel like I'm just holding it together getting down that thing. If you push one way or the other, it breaks loose on you and you go for a slide."
The Man They Expected to Win
Zac Darnell racing qualifications, where he put in the fastest time of the day. Photo credit: Seth Johnson
Coming into race day, Darnell was the name on everyone's lips. The 28-year-old from Folsom, California had the fastest qualifying time, was making his third appearance at Let It Ride, and had won King of the Hammers earlier in the season. He knew this dirt. He had raced in it before when it turned to oil-slick mud and riders were carrying their wheels over their heads through the desert. This version, dry and loose and technical, was his kind of track.
"As soon as I get on the wheel and start going, I'm in Nirvana," Darnell said before the final. "It's a happy place. It's just easy to me."
His wheel of choice was his Exway 168V Monster, custom tuned and dialed, pedals raised, shock calibrated. His pre-race demeanor was loose, confident, funny. When asked about his biggest rival, he said it was himself. "I live in constant fear. Me, myself, and I are going to sabotage Zach."
As it turned out, he was not entirely wrong.
The Man Who Almost Did Not Make It
Josh Fagerness on the Triple Z stairway feature - Photo credit Seth Johnson
Joshua Fagerness did not arrive in Boulder City well-rested. He left Rochester, Washington at 1 p.m. the day before the race, drove straight through with Justin Davis riding shotgun for part of the route, and pulled into Las Vegas at 7 in the morning. Race day started a few hours later.
That was not even the hardest part of his week. A mandatory court date had almost kept him from coming at all. And his teammate, Isaac Bonaventure, had knocked himself out in a crash the day before and spent the night in the hospital. Fagerness was there for all of it, stayed with him until he was stable.
Then it got harder. After the overnight drive, Fagerness missed qualifying entirely. He had to enter the Last Chance Qualifier -- a sudden-death round for riders who failed to qualify outright -- just to earn a spot in the final. He won it. His knee, injured a month earlier, was taped and bleeding through his jeans. He did not mention it until after the race was over.
"Outside of serving God, this is the most alive experience I ever get," Fagerness said. "Riding and pushing these wheels to the absolute max, over the terrain we're riding. It's just the most I feel alive."
Fagerness had been on an EUC for less than two years. He put 7,000 miles on a Leaper Kim Lynx before transitioning to the KingSong F18 on a new sponsorship arrangement he described as still in its infant stages. Let It Ride 5 was his second USA EUC circuit event. He had already podiumed at King of the Motos to open the season.
He came to Boulder City to get on the leaderboard. He left with something more.
The Final
Fagerness knew going in that getting out front early was the only play. Passing on this track was how you lost time, not gained it. He also knew exactly who was in the field.
"I knew in order to win it was going to take everything I had," he said. "So I just gave it everything I had."
At the start, Darnell got out in front anyway. He was simply faster off the line. But somewhere on the descent, on the Monstah that had already been reshaping itself all weekend, Darnell pushed the angle too far. He got sideways. Fagerness found a cleaner line, threaded through, and took the lead.
From there it was a matter of holding on.
"I had no idea how close they were anywhere in the race," Fagerness said. "I thought the S-corner in the middle was where I had the advantage. I was like, oh, I got them. But I look back at the video, that's where they were actually catching me."
The final times tell the story. Fagerness crossed the line at 1:37.001. Justin Davis finished second at 1:40.012. Darnell, who recovered from the Monstah and pushed back through the field, came in third at 1:40.018. Three positions separated by just over three seconds. Six thousandths of a second between second and third.
"That edge is so fine," Fagerness said. "One little slip up, one little anything and it's over."
Justin Davis putting in a qualifying run at Let It Ride 5. Photo credit: Seth Johnson
Justin Davis, for his part, had been watching Fagerness all season and was not surprised. "He's a rookie this year. He's just started racing and he's already won two big races. You better watch out for him because he's hungry and he's taking those victories."
The Standings
Let It Ride 5 was the third stop on the 10-event USA EUC National Championship Circuit, following King of the Motos and King of the Hammers. With the result, the championship picture has sharpened.
Darnell leads the national standings with 15.55 points, followed by Davis at 19.39 and Fagerness at 25.58. In USA EUC championship scoring, lower points indicate better standing. Fagerness, who has podiumed in both of his circuit starts this season, is among the most in-form riders in the field heading into the stretch run.
Davis, sitting second in the standings, is not interested in playing it safe. "I'm not going to stop racing and ripping and pushing the sport forward," he said. "If these guys want to win, they know they're going to have to get through me."
Darnell is still in the hunt and knows this type of racing better than almost anyone. Matt Burt, who impressed throughout the weekend on his KingSong F18, is eyeing upcoming events on the calendar. Law Laxina, competing in his first USA EUC event, already has his sights on Amped Electric Games in the fall.
The field is getting deeper. The racing is getting faster. And the course outside Boulder City keeps eating the Monstah's lip a little more each year.
The next stop on the USA EUC National Championship Circuit is Westworld Nationals at Arizona Bike Week in Scottsdale, Arizona, April 10-12. Full results and season standings are available at usaeuc.com.
Additional USA EUC Links
Athlete Profile
Joshua Fagerness — Read more about Joshua Fagerness
Race Coverage
King of the Motos 2026 — USA EUC Championship Race — his first circuit result of the 2026 season
Next Race
Westworld Nationals at Arizona Bike Week — April 10-12, Scottsdale, Arizona
2026 National Standings
USA EUC National Championship Standings — Fagerness sits third heading into Westworld Nationals
Athlete Profiles
Zac Darnell — current national standings leader
Justin Davis — second in the standings and rode shotgun with Fagerness on the overnight drive to Boulder City
Matt Burt — fellow KingSong F18 rider
News Profiles
Zac Darnell — EUC Racer Profile — deep dive on the rider who set the fastest qualifying time at Let It Ride 5
Justin Davis — From Motocross Roots to EUC Pro Class — second place national standings, who rode shotgun with Fagerness on the overnight drive
USA EUC National Championship Circuit Launch — the structure Fagerness is now competing in for a national title
