When the Jeep King of the Mountain Series heads to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo on Saturday for the 2007 Mountain Biking World Professional Championships, the event will be a homecoming for California racers.

Making its third appearance, the Mountain Biking World Professional Championships will feature 16 of the worlds elite athletes battling shoulder-to-shoulder in mountain-cross format for a share of the richest cash payout in the sport, topping $100,000 and the keys to a new 2008 Jeep Liberty.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will offer race fans a chance to witness up close and personal the jaw dropping spectacle of professional mountain bike racing, with its big air, high speeds, tight passes and colorful crashes.

The fun begins at 11 a.m. with the opening of the Interactive Expo Village, followed by the serving of complimentary lunch for the first 1,000 fans at noon to coincide with the start of the World Professional Championships. All activities take place in the scenic backdrop of Madonna Mountain.

Popular racers to watch for will include local rider Travis Collins, Alpine's Cody Warren, Laguna Beach's Brian Lopes, Los Alamitos' Tara Llanes and Temecula's Eric Carter and Rich Houseman.

Other racers vying for the Jeep King of the Mountain throne will arrive from locations as far as Arizona, Hawaii and on the internaional side the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

This year's event will again be staged on the Y-Cross racecourse. Competitors begin the race on separate sides of the course which appear like the prongs of a Y. They will then converge midway into a single course. In the bottom section, racers must navigate a series of banked turns, tabletops, step-down jumps and rollers before the track climaxes with an all-out sprint to the finish. The racecourse has been described as the ultimate format for mountain bike racing, as the overall winners must have a diverse of skills to win the title.

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World Professional Champions are crowned based on a system of cumulative points earned throughout the Jeep King of the Mountain Series, which includes three races from August to September, 2007. The season kicked off at the Canyons in Park City, Utah on August 4. After the San Luis Obispo event, the series heads to Beaver Creek, Colo. for the grand finale on September 1.

Each race is televised on CBS. The race from San Luis Obispo will air on CBS Sports from 5 to 6 p.m. on September 23.

The Jeep King of the Mountain Series was established in 1993. Jeep is the title sponsor. During each race the riders will be competing for the right to don the John Paul Mitchell Systems black leader's jersey, while also accruing points toward a cash bonus at the season's end.

August 15, 2007