Skinnyski Race Team Weekend Recap
By Bruce Adelsman
December 9, 2003
Timo Puiras and Ben Popp coming to the
finish line
at the Snowflake opener (Photo: Dave Johnson) |
Normally it would seem unusual to be racing in early December,
but this season it almost felt late. With a couple of November
snowfalls, people have been skiing at Snowflake for over a month
now. On Saturday, they hosted a new sprint event in memory of
Gene Marsolek, a well-known skier and pilot who passed away
this Fall. There was a big turnout for the event, with a number
of top notch skiers from across the region, including two from
Thunder Bay.
On Sunday, the Snowflake Opener featured a 10km course comprised
of three roughly 3K loops. The field was a wide range of abilities
which helped the mass start run quite smoothly. Ben Popp was
the lone Skinnyski.com racer, and after taking last season
off, he was eagar to get back on the skinny boards.
Race Team Results
December 7,
2003 Snowflake Opener
- Ben Popp 6th male
Team Member Race Reports
Race Report from Ben Popp
|
Ben's old favorite low-snow skis glided
their last kilometer during a warm down after the race.
|
Not knowing exactly what we would find due increased
warming throughout the week in Duluth, Bruce, Dino [Chris
Edin] and I piled into Bruce's highly traveled, skier adapted
silver minivan and headed to Duluth on Sunday morning for
the Snowflake opener.
Upon arrival, Dave Johnson and Andre Watt informed us
the race would be 3 x 3.8 km loops. The course was designed
by Andre to maximize the snow (and include as many hills
as possible!) -- even if that meant crossing through woods
or down crazy s-turn descents. The course actually skied
very well and "props" to everyone who made it happen as
the course was awesome (I think that is a pretty short list
including Dave and Andre).
The race was a mass start and due to the small field,
it was relatively chaos free. Within a K or so a group of
six of us had formed--Adam Swank, Andre, Nikoli Anikin,
two Canadians [Will Fitzgerald and Timo Puiras] and myself.
Coming around after one lap, Adam, Andre, Nik and Will made
a surge and dropped Timo and I. I wasn't going all out,
but I could feel I didn't have the speed to hang on---I
could tell I hadn't raced at all last year. The last two
laps Timo and I skied together and he got me on the line
(it was the kind of finish you had to be in the front, and
I wasn't).
While the result wasn't awesome, I was very happy with
how I felt for a December 6th race -- for that matter, just
to be racing was great. Hopefully it means there are good
things to come as the races get longer and tougher.
Kudos to Snowflake and everyone who helped out -- well
done!
|
