[FWM News] Heavenly and Mt Rose race weekend

[Far West Masters news]

It's March in the Far West and we got some races off last weekend as the stormy winter finally gave 
us a break with better weather!!

The Friday SL races at Heavenly had great conditions.  Mt Rose turned into a short day on a short 
course as we got blown off the hill mid-day by an incoming storm, but our one GS run was bluebird!  
Details below and on the farwestmasters.org web site.

March highlights coming up: don't miss the Women's World Cup GS and SL races at Squaw this week - 
be there if you can, it should be amazing.

http://squawalpine.com/worldcup

The USSA masters national championships will be at Mammoth next week Mar. 13-18 and the weather 
forecasts continue to show a relatively dry pattern, so we're looking forward to some great 
conditions.  Online registration is open through Friday night, so it's not too late to get signed 
up.

https://skiracereg.com/ussa/national_championships

Event schedule and information is posted on the Nationals event page of ussamasters.org:

http://ussamasters.org/2017/nationals

Mt. Rose McKinney Cup
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http://farwestmasters.org/#mt-rose-mckinney-cup

As the weekend of Mar. 4-5 and the Mt. Rose McKinney cup races approached, the weather forecasts 
began to shift from "sunny and warm" to "maybe some weather coming in". When we arrived at Rose on 
Saturday morning, it was a gorgeous sunny day with the Sunshine Bowl race track beautifully 
prepared. It was, however, a tad bit breezy. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the Zephyr 
lift began to roll on schedule and competitors headed up the hill for inspection and our first run.

Although the course was a relatively short GS, due to the venue change from the Silver Dollar run 
where the timing equipment was inaccessible under 20 feet of snow, the course was fun and the 
sunshine appreciated after our stormy winter. Just before the scheduled second run start at 
11:45am, with competitors arriving at the start, the winds increased past 60mph at the summit and 
the lift went on wind hold. With the winds continuing to increase and 1-2 ft of snow forecast 
overnight from a cold northern front, organizers and jury concluded that racing was done for the 
weekend and all adjourned to the Winters Creek lodge for food and party socializing.

The McKinney Cup trophy, awarded to the fastest overall man and woman for the event, was easy to 
calculate this year with only our 1-run GS to score! Andrea Levy (W01) convincingly took the 
women's title, while Mihai Filimon (M04) topped the hotly contested men's standings.
Complete results are posted on the Race Results page along with the updated Season Standings 
rankings for 2017. 

Viva Italia SL Races
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http://farwestmasters.org/#viva-italia

Viva Italia!!! The rescheduled Heavenly SL races, cancelled due to a massive winter storm in early 
January, were held on Friday Mar. 3 and it was a great spring party! Racing on the World Cup SL 
hill at the California base of Heavenly, we had comfortable spring weather and a beautiful day on 
the hill. The race hill was in fantastic condition, with the usual terrain features gentled to a 
smooth pitch by this season's snowpack.

Heavenly's race crew did a great job keeping the busy race day of 4 SL runs moving along. Yes, we 
still had to hike to the start about 6 gates up from the top of the World Cup lift, but hey, the 
weather was great and you can't beat the view from Heavenly.

Awards were held at the bottom of the race hill at the end of the day, with pizza and sunshine in 
plenty. With both races scored under our age-handicapping system for the Viva Italia cup, Carol 
Levine (W09) recovered from a shakey first run for a come-from-behind victory over the closely 
fought day-long battle between Emily Andrews and Lors Spicher. On the men's side, Tim Hill of PNSA 
(M06) drove all the way from Bend for some sunny FW racing and posted some wicked fast skiing to 
take the men's trophy ahead of defending champ Pierre Jeangirard and Bob Davis, back on the race 
hill and charging the comeback trail after a serious injury last season.