Midwest Racing Season Preview

October 29, 2013

With the cool autumn weather, it’s not hard to imagine the racing season is just over a month away. While the date of the first snowfall is anyone’s guess, the continued development of man-made snow venues have helped to stabilize some of the racing opportunities for early season and in recent years, a fairly consistent snowfall has helped to reduce the number of cancellations across much of the region. The combination of these influences has resulted in a 2013-2014 racing calendar that has relatively minor changes from seasons past.

The Season

Barring some big November snowstorms, the season should kickoff again with the combination of the Wednesday night racing series at Elm Creek, and the Hoigaard’s Relays, which moves to Elm Creek this season. The Hoigaard Relays will also sport a modified format, changing to shorter laps but upping the count, to make it more of a true sprint relay.

The Twin Cities will host a few December tune-up races again, with the Skinnyski Santa Solstice and Como Championships. Wausau will mark the start of the Junior National Qualifiers with a set of races just before Christmas. The race format will switch from its previous all sprint format to skate sprints Saturday and classic distance races on Sunday.

One of the new events this season appears the first weekend in January -- the Wave One Pursuit. A fundraiser for MS, the race features a classical mass start followed by a skate pursuit race, and will be held at Hickory Ridge.

With small-scale snowmaking operations expected to begin this season at Battle Creek, organizers are optimistic that the Twin Cities Championships will feature the classic races on the recently revamped trail design.

After suffering a highly unusual, and catastrophic meltdown last season, the Sisu Ski Fest in Ironwood is back to host the season’s first marathon. With Jonathan Rulseh at the helm, the festival is rolling out a whole set of snowshoe races (held at a different location) this year.

Mid-January ramps the racing level up with busy weekend schedules. Nordic Spirit in Duluth, formerly a late January event, has moved up a few weeks hoping to get in on some of early season excitement. The wildly popular Seeley Hills Classic moves back a few weeks, giving the striders plenty of prep this year. A newcomer, with an old name, the Baker Shaker comes back to Baker for 10K and 20K events.

Two big marathons had some new twists this January, as the Boulder Lake race starts a snowshoe division, and a unique snowshoe/ski duathlon. The Noquemanon adds a little more buzz with text message race updates and more racing on Sunday, including a second snowbike race.

Finishing out the month, Kamview has retooled their race offerings, combining some old races into a new Tour de Kamview 3-day race series. The Tour de Kamview will feature sprints on Friday, long skate races Saturday and shorter classic events Sunday.

January also features two new JNQ races. Tentatively listed as ‘Telemark JNQ’, January 18-19 are scheduled for freestyle and classic races in the Cable area. The next week, Mount Itasca in Coleraine will host three days of racing with a classic race Friday (CCSA), freestyle Saturday, and classic sprints Sunday.

February remains the month of major marathons, with some of the biggest events on the calendar each weekend. The opening weekend features the City of Lakes Loppet festival. This year, the Loppet has elevated the classic race to a full marathon and moved it to Saturday. Those game for the distances can now do both the classic and freestyle races, qualifying for the Loppet Challenge award. With the new 42K distances, the Loppet will feature a new course segment in south Minneapolis, going overland to the Minikahda golf course before returning to Calhoun to finish near the northwest end of the lake.

The second weekend in February brings the usual pair of heavy hitters - the Pre-Birkie on Saturday and the truly unique Vasaloppet USA on Sunday in Mora. Last year’s snowstorm during the Vasaloppet added another chapter to the epic tradition.

The final weekend before the Birkie, February 15-16 is filled with contenders hoping to offer a great tune up event. However, it is the Minnesota Finlandia that still reigns as the premiere race as the town comes out to put on a whale of race, including those legendary rosemaled ax awards.

The mighty American Birkebeiner, with its wide array of events and expos, dominates the final full weekend in February. Assured of its historical start at Telemark, the event filled in record time again this year as Ben Popp took over the role of director from Ned Zuelsdorff. While the core events will remain unchanged, expect a number of new features to come down the pipe this winter.

Moving into March, events scheduled in this first weekend offer no reason to slow down. The Sleeping Giant Loppet has become one of the season’s hallmark events with sprints on Thursday that give plenty of time to recoup for the big races on Saturday, especially with the wide range of distances the Sleeping Giant has to offer. Squirrel Hill Pursuit at Minocqua is adding skijor and snowshoe divisions to accompany the continuous pursuit races.

The racing season rapidly winds down by the second weekend in March, as the Pepsi Challenge and Great Bear Chase mark the final marathon events and one last time to use that “Birkie-form”. The Pepsi’s recent move to March has suited them well, as the snow has remained plentiful and the temperatures more moderate than the former January date.

Lappe Nordic, in Thunder Bay, will officially close the season with their rolling celebration and race, the 24 Hours of Lappe. As many a former racer will confess, the Sunday morning pancakes are reason alone to wrap the season up north of the border!

Series

Exact information has yet to be published, but skiers can expect a Midwest race series to be held that will be very similar to the Fast Wax Race Series last season. And watch for details on a new collegiate club series, featuring a unique racing format, to be announced in the upcoming weeks.

Major Events

The year is unusually light in national events for the upper Midwest. While usually hosting to a number of SuperTour events, this season the only major stop for our region will be the Tour de Twin Cities events in mid-February. Saturday, the 15th, will showcase some of the nations best racers in a head-to-head battle with mass start classic races at Battle Creek. Sunday continues the racing at Battle Creek with skate format events. (It should be noted that the American Birkebeiner is a SuperTour event as well.)

And while it’s only several thousand miles away from the upper Midwest, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Socchi, Russia, will hopefully carry a Midwest theme as a number of top skiers (cross-country and Nordic combined) with area ties are hoping to make the trip.

Calendars

The racing calendar on Skinnyski has undergone another set of revisions for this season. Last year we rolled out integrated race updates and results into the calendar. This season we’ve now generated separate calendars for high school and collegiate racing, and melded the junior races into all calendars to provide a tailored event listing for each division.

As usual with a late fall publication, there are some events “missing-in-action” on the calendar at the time of publication. Most notable, a number of the weekly evening race series have not posted updated schedules, and organizers from Lapham Peak and St. Mary’s University (Winona) events are still working out details for this winter.

Check back throughout the season as updates, along with some short-notice events, get posted to the racing calendars.

Racing Calendar