That's what it was dubbed when Aspen became the original US Downhill World Cup stop. Since then it's been supplanted by the Birds of Prey track at Beaver Creek. Rumor has it the locals are a bit upset, but that hasn't dampened their passion for big races; Aspen has been hosting NORAM and championship downhills on a regular basis.
The Aspen track is a classic, dropping 2800 feet in elevation with a mixture of glides, jumps, micro-terrain and extreme steeps. Scott loves the venue -- he took Silver and Gold here at Junior Nationals two years ago.
Scott's here for the NORAM speed week, which will include two Downhills, two Super Gs, and a Super Combined. Additionally, the US National Downhill Championship will be run on Wednesday. Scott's in heaven... back-to-back speed weeks. Downhills are like a trip to the amusement park for him. Top it off with good snow and sunshine, and it just can't be beat!
We were concerned about the surface watching the weather last week. Aspen was enjoying a powder cycle with frigid conditions. But the Aspen Valley Ski Club and mountain operations have been down this road before. The track is now solid, and speeding up each passing day. Today's training run results were on average two seconds faster than yesterday's. I suspect we'll pick up 4-5 seconds over the course of the week.
Scott's skied well each day. Yesterday he tied for 11th in the first training run, with a substantial mistake on the steepest pitch. He essentially was off line coming in and had to suffer through 4-5 gates on the low line... not the fast choice. He fixed that today and finished in fifth place, one second off the lead. He still sees another half second he can clean up, so he's hoping for a big day tomorrow. He'll have NORAM downhills Monday and Tuesday, followed by the national championship on Wednesday.
An exciting sideline for me is that about 25 athletes in this field of 100 are on Podium Wax products. The buzz is slowly growing and we are being recognized as a bonafide player. I'm tired of "glacial" growth...
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