Pankratz explains Motocross XC

Trevor Pankratz, son of Laura and Bill Pankratz of Malta, has been a part of the Montana XC (cross country) series, a league of racers that have races all over the state. In his young career, Pankratz has won a championship and has put together racing events.

"Typically the laps are from ten to twenty miles," Pankratz told the PCN. "The races go for two and a half, three and a half hours."

Moto XC has several classes of racing that includes different classes, ages from kid to senior citizen and different engine sizes.

"A lot of them are just motocross bikes or converted motocross bikes," Pankratz said. "But there's anything from kid's bikes that start at 80cc to big bikes at 450cc."

Pankratz went on to say that typically faster racers would want to run a bigger bike. Pankratz prefers the 250cc engine in Class A, a class that he won in 2014.

"The bigger bikes are more work to ride, obviously," Pankratz said. "Mostly the bigger guys and pros ride those."

Pankratz has also headed up a race last season at Elk Basin in Belfry. That race was a 66 mile journey.

"It's not the length that gets you it's just that the course is so challenging because usually they are in rough, nasty terrain," Pankratz said.

He went on to say you can end up with either slow terrain that includes weaving in and out of rocks to wide open terrain across the desert.

"It's a mixture of everything but usually the terrain beats you up," Pankratz said. "You just go into it knowing that you'll be tired at the end but it's definitely an endurance thing."

Pankratz is a 2004 graduate of Malta High School and a graduate of Montana State University, where he majored in Mechanical Engineering Technology.

Though he participated in the flashier Motocross events before his college years, he became a XC rider during his time in college.

"I grew up racing Motocross, which is smaller tracks, jumps and stuff," Pankratz said. "Then I gave that up when I went to college and started riding cross country stuff."

His reasoning for giving up the more dangerous jumping races was simply because he didn't have access to those courses at the time.

"So I just had buddies that would go with me riding the hills and I found out I was pretty good at it," Pankratz said.

Pankratz currently lives in Laurel with Celena, who is his wife of eight years and their two children four year old Zoe and five month old Lydia.