The world was invited; several players from Colorado, one guy from Idaho, and the usual assortment of Wasatch characters showed up. (pretty good for a free race series put together on a budget of .. of .. well, about three winner’s pies per race, usually). ..And the out-of-towners pretty much handed the locals their collective butts, walking away with the first, second, and third place finishes. Guess Wasatch skiers need to work a bit more on speeding it up. And that’s the basic point behind the Wasatch Citizen Race series. Next race comes up on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 7 p.m. Will you be there?
Brief details:
- Four of us headed up early to put in a skin track since we’d had this unusual and quite rare white substance fall out of the sky overnight.
- When finished, we stood in the parking lot waiting for everyone to show up. A few minutes before race start time of 7 am, no one had showed. For a second we thought it was a bust, then realized that it was more likely that everyone was crawling very slowly up the canyon behind someone driving quite slowly. A minute or two later, the procession arrived, led by a slow truck.
- I counted right around 30 racers; not bad for a snowy, end-of-week workday.
- Lost track of the number of Dynafit speed suits on hand. They were all moving around too quickly.
- Racers lined up wearing headlamps and the standard melee of running began once the signal was given.
- Up, down, up, down, for four laps we went.
- It’s a lot easier to see how one fared when using this race format compared to the Vert style (count laps completed in a pre-determined timeframe) as we’ve had several times now.
More Points of Note:
There may soon be prizes above and beyond the customary pies to be handed out. For this race, Minus33, GU, Grabber Warmers, and REI stepped up with a bit of schwag. Never know what you might win at the next race unless you show up…
Lost and Found?: A camera (canon s100) was misplaced in the Milly lodge during the award handouts. If you or anyone you know knows anything about it, do the right thing. Drop a comment or tell someone what’s up.
The top 17 places as determined by Jared Inouye, who, coughing up lung butter, wisely dropped out after the first lap (and left before everyone finished, resulting in incomplete results..):
1. Luke Nelson
2. Bryan Wickenhauser
3. Pete Swenson
4. Andy Dorais
5. Tom Goth
6. Janelle Smiley
7. Courtney Phillips
8. Mark Smiley
9. Chad Brackelsberg
10. Layne Caldwell
11. Tim Holmberg
12. Luther Birdzell
13. Matt Hart
14. Jon Swain
15. Adam OKeefe
16. Nate Kartchner
17. David Morris
18-30-ish? ..unknown.. As for the rest, it’s in pictures. All photos by Travis Haussener except where noted.
Overall race winner Luke Nelson doing a flyby. He's good at those.
Tiptoeing past this house they go...
Elk Mountains Grand Traverse Co-Race Director Bryan Wickenhauser enjoys a short race, Utah style.
Frequent women's splitboarding champ Chesy Nichols grinds it out up the switchbacks.
Jon Swain working his way through a speedy transition. Pic by Adam OKeefe.
Making small talk with racing heartbeats is common. Or, just chasing one another through the woods.
Janelle Smiley burning up the skin track.
Chad Brackelsberg counting the days 'til the Powderkeg.
Layne Caldwell keeps it in high gear.
A OK doing his best impression of an out-of-breath person wearing spandex.
Waiting for the last racers to show up inside the lodge apres-race.
Luke 'I've never won a PIE before' Nelson holds up his winnings. Photo by A OK.
No pictures of anyone skiing down because we all secretly ride the chairlift down when no one is looking…
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