The sixth and final round of the Lifetime Grand Prix presented by Mazda Off-Road Series will be held Saturday in Bentonville, Arkansas. Once the white powder lifts off the dusty 104-mile route from northern Arkansas to southern Missouri, the rest is green racing. The top 10 riders in each of the elite women's and elite men's categories will share $250,000 in prize money.

Twenty-three women remain eligible for a share of the $125,000 season-ending prize purse, while 24 men have qualified.

Only five points separate the top three women - Smith with 113 points, Sarah Sturm with 109 points, and Sofia Gomez Villafane with 108 points. Sturm is second in the Tushar crusher and Villafane won the Unbound Gravel 200. You never know what can happen in gravel.

Keegan Swenson has won four events, including the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, and leads the men's standings for the year. A win at Big Sugar would guarantee him the overall win.

However, Alexey Vermeulen is in second place, 11 points out of a 120-point lead. Following Swenson are five others with a total point difference of only 10 points, with third place going to Cole Patton, who finished second in the Tushar Crusher, and fourth to Peter Stetina, the recent winner of the Belgian Waffle Ride Quadrupel Crown.

Of the 30 women competing in the series, 24 will compete in Fayetteville. Outside of the series contenders looking for individual glory, including Gravel World Champion Lauren De Crescenzo, 2022 Belgian Waffle Ride Utah winner Whitney Allison, and Flavia Oliveira Parks, this year's BWR Quadrapel Crown Series women's winner. will also join the star-studded gravel field. Erin Hack, the 2021 US XC Mountain Bike Champion, will also be an invited competitor. He was sidelined this year with the birth of Brennen and a stress fracture in his left foot.

On Saturday, 26 men from the 30 original Series registered riders will compete, including Brennan Wertz, 3rd in the BWR Quadrupel Crown, Wasatch All Road winner Griffin Easter, and Inokenti Zabialov, 5th in Gravel Worlds. Non-gravel riders will also be noted.

Other riders to watch out for include Quick Step Alpha Vinyl's Remi Cavagna, Ilan van Wilder, Mattia Cattaneo, Kasper Asgreen, Bora Hansgrohe's teammate Jordi Meeus, and Sian Uitdebroeks.

Howard Grotz and Adam Roberge, currently tied for 12th in the men's standings, are the defending Big Sugar Gravel champions. Moriah Wilson, the 2021 women's champion, was the early series leader after winning the Fuego XC 80k at the Sea Otter Classic in April. A month later, before the final tune-up for the signature Unbound Gravel event, Wilson was tragically killed in a shooting in Austin, Texas. Wilson was remembered with a memorial ride at sunrise in Emporia, Kansas, with a "Ride Like Mo" sticker.

Points in the six Lifetime Grand Prix events are awarded to the individual winner with 30 points; second place receives 29 points, third place 28 points, and so on in one-point increments for the remaining participants. The overall winner, top male and top female in each category will be determined based on the highest points earned for the best finish in five of the six events; one can drop one event or not race that year; the top male and top female in each category will be determined based on the highest points earned for the best finish in each of the six events.

Incidentally, only 11 women and 16 men line up in all six races. There are no official prizes for completing all the events, only bragging rights.

Smith, the overall women's leader, finished a lowly 6th in the opening race, the Sea Otter Classic, Fuego 80k MTB. This means that she can only increase her 113 points if she finishes 5th or better on Saturday. So who can overtake her?

So, if Smith were to finish 6th on Saturday, she would keep her total 113 points. That means there are nine riders who could win the race and gain up to 30 points and overtake her lead, up to 10th-place Kristen Regan (85 points). However, the final point score will shuffle the standings for this group.

What this means is that the final podium is still wide open, as the standings are determined in one-point increments. And what really matters is getting into the top 10. There is $125,000 available for the women and men, but only the top 10 will be paid, with $25,000 going to the winner of each category and $6,000 to the 10th place finisher.