First Races Done

It's still weird not being at races. Two weeks ago were the first races of the new season. The first two races were at Sugarloaf, last weekend she was in Vermont at Stratton. It seems Sugarloaf is an interesting place. There are several resorts out west that were closed because they have too much snow. The lifts aren't going anywhere when the snow is almost up to the top of the pylon at the top of the lift. WAY too much snow. The problem at Sugarloaf is often too much wind. The Friday before the races was supposed to be a practice day but it was so windy they had to cancel that. Hard to get up the mountain when the lifts aren't running. Eventually Sugarloaf finally got one lift open but it wasn't near the race course. Whitney said that she got in several runs then called it a day. She was cold, she had sat around most of the morning, and was ready to go back to school to get a few things done.

The races at Sugarloaf were run in some serious cold. It was below zero when she got there in the morning and it didn't warm up too much during the day. She hadn't had too much training before those races and there were several girls in her class racing. She raced well and placed 5th on Saturday and 3rd on Sunday. With more practice under her belt and some good coaching she'll do better.

Stratton was last weekend. Another semi-frustrating weekend for her. The weather was really poor, very foggy and also rainy. It seemed like all the pictures I saw on social media last weekend it was the same story everywhere - a couple of USCSA and USASA races had bad fog, the BX races at Solitude were snowy with a bit of fog, and I think there was another race that had a lot of fog. It was kind of crazy, especially how bad the fog was in places and yet they still raced. That was Whitney's issue - the fog was really bad, almost unsafe especially with the rain and yet they raced. She, as well as a couple of the adults, said something to the race officials but they said they were already racing and it was ok. Not really. She had a poor start on Sunday due to the rain and wet gloves, slipped in the start gate and hit her head. Thankfully it's required that racers wear helmets and she's fine. But since she slipped she didn't get off well and ended up in second. She finished first in Saturday's race.

Right now she's ranked 2nd nationally in USASA. This year it doesn't matter too much how she's ranked. She'll be going to Copper in March but it will be for the USSA/FIS race, not USASA Nationals, so her ranking doesn't really matter (she doesn't need to rank high to qualify for Nationals since she's going for a different race).

She's got this weekend off from racing. Enjoying some training and fun time at Titcomb today, Sugarloaf tomorrow. Next weekend is a BX race at Stratton and a giant slalom race at Mount Sunapee. I'll be heading north to watch those. After that she'll be coming home for BX races at Massanutten as she enters the busiest part of the season.