[FWM News] Mammoth schedule change; Heavenly Viva Italia

[Far West Masters news]

As announced yesterday by Far West Masters president Mark Mirviss, the DH and SG speed races 
scheduled for Jan. 23-26 cannot be held due to lack of snow to allow a safe speed venue course. 
Instead, we will have 3 GS races the weekend of Jan. 25-26, with three runs each day.

All competitors registered on SkiRaceReg.com for the DH and SG events will be notified through the 
registration system of the schedule change. Please re-submit your entries for the rescheduled GS 
races (we won't carry over the DH/SG entries, you must re-register).

Mammoth GS event info:
http://farwestmasters.org/announcements/2014/RaceInfo-Mammoth-Jan2014-GS.pdf

Heavenly Viva Italia SL races
-----------------------------

After the break for the holidays and New Year, Far West Masters racing resumed with the 2014 Viva 
Italia SL races at Heavenly Valley, featuring two SL races on World Cup run, with warm sunny 
weather and an excellent racing surface. The race crew featured a team effort by Heavenly Valley 
and Eric Whittaker's crew from Northstar and they did an outstanding job putting on 4 runs of SL. 
Special thanks to Rees Palermo who came out to be our TD for the day while recovering from his hip 
replacement surgery and put in a long day working tirelessly with the race crew to put on an 
outstanding event, assisted by referee Mark Mirviss.

In addition to plenty of great skiing throughout the day, racers and spectators alike were treated 
to a visit by the Heavenly Bear, who hung out playing on the sidelines during the second morning 
run, courteously waiting for the course inspection break to make a run for the far side of his 
hill. Check out the photo link from Sacramento's KCRA (reports are we also made "Good Morning 
America"!)

http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/bear-stops-by-heavenly-mountain-race-course/-/12970852/23872490/-/11b4hcz/-/index.html?absolute=true

The post-race party featured Mr. Viva Italia himself, John Gianotti, and the presentation of the 
Viva Italia cup to the top man and women skier in the morning race, using an age-handicap formula 
to recognize strong skiing across all our age groups. The 2014 Viva Italia winners are Linda 
Crowell (W07) and Kurt "Beldonini" Belden (M07) - congratulations!

Complete results are posted on the Race Results page along with the new Season Standings rankings 
for 2014.

http://farwestmasters.org/raceinfo/2014/results
http://farwestmasters.org/raceinfo/2014/standings