Mount Gay Rum Sise Cup Series: Middlebury Snow
Bowl & Suicide Six Races Middlebury Snow Bowl GS The Middlebury Snow Bowl is no place for the frail of spirit or the faint of heart. Course inspection left many wondering if they should arrange for a sanity check when they got back, presuming they survived the day. The course wound precipitously down a head wall, featuring several blind gates to heighten the tension, then rolled innocuously to a final insidious short pitch. As irony would have it, because ski racing mimics life in this regard, the insipid-looking bottom half proved the greater test of technical skill. The treacherous little undulations harbored a kick, and the tricky line coupled with flat light or shadow bested many a racer who failed to focus or committed the error of assuming flatter equated to easier. It got the heart rate up, and nobody was thinking about his day job. Even so, fear is not a performance enhancing emotion for many people, and perhaps there should have been a sign at the start alerting all who entered to abandon hope, because the course claimed almost 25% of the men and 28% of the women.
Run of the day? Hmm, tough call, because wild man Doug Tucker nailed the fastest first run in a dramatic descent which, alas, he matched with an equally dramatic crash in the second run. John Pierce left spectators holding their breath in anticipation of witnessing his imminent self-destruction as he charged to a 3rd place overall finish. But the two top contenders for first place, Dave Lamb and Bob Hill, were worth the full price of admission on this day. OK, maybe it's true that competition drives men to exceed potential, to excel. Because while Lamb's second run proved commanding and impressive, Bob Hill's was textbook perfect. With controlled power he glissaded flawlessly, having accurately diagnosed the physics of each G-force, the subtlety of line, the vagaries of light, to slay the heart of this monster.
The Middlebury race support team ran this event with the precision of the Swiss rail system. Both races started on time, finishing times were displayed electronically at the base, the second course was set within a remarkable 20 minutes, there were no lift lines, and the lift kept running. Our sponsors, Florian Tools, Artech and Denby Pottery, Mount Gay Rum, Swix, and Buchika's Ski and Bike, added to the post-race glow inherent to a day hard fought and hard won with generous raffle prizes.
Lisa Densmore dominated the women's field, while Melissa Patterson (2nd place), in her first race since the birth of her son and with little training, showed us that it may not be practice that makes perfect, but perfect practices. Patti Lane, in third place, assertively bested many in the men's field. Class six again pitted the national gold and bronze medallists Cindy Berlack and Barb Settel against one another, with Berlack retaining her claim to the top laurels.
Suicide Six Slalom For those of us who feel that "fun slalom" should serve as the dictionary example for "oxymoron," Suicide Six made us think again. The area has the charm of a simpler life, reminiscent of the 60s, a time when we used to slide our skis and lace our boots, and the weather enhanced the winter-wonderland experience. There was nothing simple about the course-- that was pure high-tech millennium. The course setters had in mind a turny rhythm which on inspection looked like a mini-GS, designed to test the mettle of the technically nimble. The proof of the course is in the skiing, however, and as racers struggled to draw breath at the finish line the word most frequently expressed was, indeed, "Fun."
The real story of the day was the appearance on the circuit of the formidable Dahls. The race this day in both the men's and the women's fields was for second place (well, technically it was for third place in the men's field). Janice Dahl had the second fastest first and second run of the day (that's right, out of men and women), to be bested only by her husband, Ivar. Both demolished their closest competition by over five seconds. Word has it they plan to participate in a number of New England Masters competitions, raising the bar a little for the rest of us. Competition is good, right? Pulls us out of our comfort zone, forces us to achieve potential.
As part of the day's entertainment package, spectators were treated to the first Super Seed of the season. The top ten fastest male finishers (and note that the qualifying adjective is relevant this time, because had the Seed been universal, the explosive Janice Dahl would have been in the line-up) from the first run pummeled their way through the course, in rapid succession, dazzling the on looking crowd with a poetic display of power and skill wedded in syncopated harmony to unmasked aggression. The victor, of course, was Ivar Dahl.
In the men's field, Sean Mato finished second, a narrow two hundredths of a second ahead of David Roberts. The women's field's second place finisher Carolyn Beckedorff bested Margaret Zuccotti by a little under two seconds. Not all the excitement was confined to the Super Seed. In Class 6 Bill Brennan finished the first run in a tie with Brad Domina, a battle resolved with Domina the winner by 4 tenths. Class 4 was almost as close: David Lamb had only seven hundredths of a second over Doug Carpenter. Lamb was not to be beaten on this day, however. He pulled off a spectacular second run to open the margin by a second and a half.
Class 3 Masters Racer George Seward has rationalized his addiction to the sport citing a behavioral phenomenon, observed among gamblers, called "intermittent gratification." It works roughly like this: if human beings can win at something all the time, the absence of challenge causes them to lose interest; if they can never win they will likewise abandon the endeavor. But if they can intermittently satisfy some need, they'll continue to return, regardless of interim disappointments. Frequently the risks have to be increased to assure the participant stays involved, but that's no problem in ski racing. Name the "need" that makes one want to compete, to pit strength and courage and skill against a course and a clock, and you might gain some insight into what this group of people has in common. But add to that the need to be around other people, at least on a seasonal basis, who share the vigor, the attitude, the energy of meeting challenge, and you can begin to grasp the shared addiction of Masters ski racers. We have a little in common with gamblers, but what we're gambling for is the vitality of youth at every age.
The Mount Gay Rum New England Masters Series resumes next week at Bromley and Stratton. |