Masters' Ski Racing (Pat's Peak & Dartmouth Skiway) by Joe-Bob McGrath

El Nino, having transposed weather patterns from the Rockies to New England, continued to smile upon the Masters' race series. Firm snow, warm sun and blue skies conspired to produce yet another memorable weekend of racing. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat unfolded with predictable regularity as the masters pursued their seasonal psychodrama on the slopes of Pat's Peak and the Dartmouth Skiway. Saturday's "crashorama" at the Peak witnessed a sequence of spectacular wipe-outs on the steep slalom course, in which a number of younger racers failed to profit from the experience of their older, wiser and more discrete colleagues. Among the victims were many youthful luminaries including George Merrill, Jesse Beck, Ronn Gifford, Jimmie Harding and the dashing Willie Westcott. On the women's side prudence tended to reign with Meg St. John besting Lisa Densmore and Kim Wolff for the overall title. After the carnage of the men's field Brian Dewsnap emerged the victor over Bob Hill and Chris Johnson. In class action Lane Partridge (3) Bob Hill (4) Jason Densmore (5) and Peter Whitehead (6) mounted the podium. Steve Foley (7) continued his winning ways as did David Britton (8) who bested this writer once again, consigning the latter to extended counseling, at least for the foreseeable future. Larry Volker (9), Duffy Dodge (10) and Tony Hyde (11) also lifted Warsteiner glasses. Sunday's event at the Dartmouth Skiway was equally hair-raising, especially the second run when a Super G set, courtesy of Brian Dewsnap, combined with shadow and sun to create something akin to an atmospheric testing laboratory. Many of the older racers saw little of the course during their rapid descent through the penumbra, as failing eyesight conjoined with unintended acceleration to produce something akin to a blur. The televised ambiance of the early Olympic ski and snowboard events was a paradigm of clarity compared to the afternoon's field of vision. Once again Meg ("the Meganator") St. John demolished the women's field, emerging almost six seconds combined ahead of her nearest rivals, Lisa Densmore, Lilli Winslow and Nadine Price. Anna (La fanciulla del West) Wieser arose from her early season semi-retirement to capture class 6 while Wendy Hill, Betsy Kent and Pam Fisher carried the day in their respective classes. Men's action centered on the victory of G.S. specialist David Lamb's (Class 3) overall victory, followed by Chris Johnson, Jim Harding and Sean Florian. Bob Hill claimed class 4 while Bill Brown, Bill McCollom and Bob Wigglesworth dominated their classes. Dave Britton, Paul Rich, Duffy Dodge and Egil Nilsson (perennial class winners all) continued to claim bragging rights (at least until the Hochgebirge team challenge in two weeks). A special feature of this weeks action was a combined scoring system that awarded extra seasonal points to the overall Sise Cup. Too complex to be understood by this writer, it somehow awarded the overall combined title to Brian Dewsnap over Chris Johnson by 2 hundredths of a second. Chris has vowed to work on his starts as a result.

(Ed. Note: The combined race was scored by adding the times for all four runs.  Professor McGrath teaches Art History.  'Nuff said.)