Thanks to presenting sponsor, Luck Stone, this year’s Xterra East Championship in Richmond will offer fans a whole new way to experience the race. I lay it all out in my race advance in today’s T-D, but here it is in a nutshell: 1) GPS-enabled athlete tracking for the pros; 2) streaming video at eight points along the course; 3) a “social media map” that allows anyone who tweets with the hashtag #xterraRVA to have their tweet show up on the map.

Let’s say you can’t make it out to Brown’s Island or to somewhere along the course to take in the off-road thrills in person. If you have access to a computer and the internet, go to luckstone.xterra.com on Sunday morning. There you can choose from the above options. You can watch where six-time winner Conrad Stoltz is as he starts his bike leg. Where will he make his move? Who will challenge him? And as you watch the athlete tracker, you can click on the streaming video to watch your athlete of choice as they pass a certain point. With the social media map, you’ll be able to see what spectators out on the course are tweeting about.

It’s all new this year, and, frankly, I’m not sure I know of another sporting event that offers this kind of multimedia access. Very cool stuff.