Racing on the Rebecca’s Private Idaho gravel course over Trail Creek Summit and across Copper Basin for the first time, Matt Beers, 31, of Cape Town, South Africa, was reminded of home.

“It almost felt like I teleported back to Cape Town,” he said. “We have similar-looking mountains. … We don’t get snow, but it’s the shrub and gravel road.”

Beers won the male category of RPI’s Baked Potato 102.9-mile race, which features 6,220 feet of elevation gain, with a time of 4 hours, 51 minutes, 45.5 seconds on Sunday.

The time gave Beers the overall Queen’s Stage Race championship with a combined time of 7:07:59.84 over a 35-mile race at Harriman Trail on Thursday, 50-mile race at the Dollarhide Summit Time Trial on Friday and Sunday’s Baked Potato race.

“It was a hard race [on Sunday],” he sai

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