[FWM News] Heavenly Viva Italia SL, Sierra at Tahoe GS races

[Far West Masters news]

Despite record-breaking cold temperatures, January racing resumed with a 3-day "south shore" 
weekend under mostly sunny skies, with Friday's Viva Italia SL races at Heavenly followed by two 
days of GS racing at Sierra at Tahoe.  Complete results are posted on the Race Results page of the 
farwestmasters.org web site, along with the updated Season Standings rankings for 2013.

Our next race is a 3-day speed event at Mammoth on Jan. 25-27.  The Rick Conrado Memorial SG races 
offer 5 SG races, with a Friday morning training run before the first race to allow all competitors 
to get "up to speed" on the race hill.  The first two races are also part of the 2013 National 
Speed Series, which opened this past weekend with two SG's at Park City.  Beside being a total hoot 
with 3 days of skiing ridiculously fast on a safe and well-prepared course (isn't that enough by 
itself?!), this is also a chance to race on the venue for the upcoming FIS Masters Cup races at the 
end of February.

http://ussamasters.org/2013/nss

Heavenly Viva Italia SL races
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The January race calendar opened with a Friday SL doubleheader on the World Cup race hill at 
Heavenly Valley. Following a bountiful holiday break that brought significant snowfall and 
excellent skiing conditions to Sierra ski areas, unusually cold weather dropped into the Far West 
to bring a cold but sunny race day. The racing surface was superb - firm but grippy - and the 
veteran Heavenly race crew welcomed our masters competitors and once again put on an excellent 
event.

The first SL race is used for an age-handicapped overall scoring to present the Viva Italia trophy, 
sponsored by veteran masters champion John Gianotti. While John is now retired from active racing, 
many remember his joyous racing days of "Viva Italia" cheers and race analysis "It was the best run 
of my life!" (every time!). In addition to sponsoring the Viva Italia trophy, John organizes and 
sponsors a fantastic post-race party. Many thanks to John for continuing to share his passion for 
ski racing with us. The 2013 Vivia Italia trophy winners are Deb Lewis (W07) and Ara Papazian (M04).

Sierra at Tahoe GS races
------------------------

Following Friday's Viva Italia SL races at Heavenly, the Tahoe basin plunged to record low 
temperatures for our weekend GS races at Sierra at Tahoe. With the south shore dropping to -9 on 
Friday night and -14 on Saturday, the conditions were... brisk! Luckily for competitors used to 
more moderate temperatures, bright sun and light winds brought warmer conditions as the morning 
progressed.

Sierra at Tahoe gave us a warm welcome on this chilly weekend, providing an expedited competitor 
lane for loading the lift and beer and pizza for the post-race awards parties. Saturday's race 
start was pushed back an hour, with the course crew delayed from setting the first run to allow cat 
crews to provide additional preparation of the race hill. The resulting race conditions were quite 
good, especially considering recent snowfall and cold temperatures that kept the snow surface 
powdery, and improved even more for Sunday's race. Different course sets for each run provided fun 
racing - the hill is relatively short, but has a good pitch, and competitors were challenged by a 
flat opening section before the breakover onto a long steady pitch leading to the finish runout. 
Given the cold conditions, it was also nice to be conveniently located "front and center" with easy 
access to the base lodge for warmups!