Masters: Sweet ‘16 Team Named in Sun Valley

The 2014-2015 season may be behind us, but a fresh crop of fast masters is already eyeing next season, thanks to the spots they recently earned on the 2016 Spyder U.S. Masters Team.

Sun Valley Resort and the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) staged the naming game, hosting 200 athletes from around the U.S. and Canada for the Phillips 66 U.S. Alpine Masters Championships from March 14 to 20, 2015. Multiple generations reuniting, challenging weather and snow conditions and a new scheduling twist (with all four groups racing the same event on the same day, except for super combined) dominated the five-day series — dominated by familiar faces and rising racers. The event kicked off with the C/D super combined on the first day of competition.

Super Combined

Each year, regional USSA teams vie for the coveted Division’s Cup while individuals aim for that Spyder team spot, which honors the top man and women in each age group based on results at the national championships. Typically, the team is selected based on a super G, GS and slalom, but this year, super combined was added to the mix, with racers mixing one run of super G with one run of slalom.

Super combineds are a rare occurrence at this annual event, which typically starts with a downhill. But since Aspen had held the national downhill in February, Sun Valley opened with the super combined, in temperatures climbing toward 60 degrees. That led to the postponement of the start for the C/D group so that race crews could “salt” the course. The first day alone, more than 2,500 pounds of fertilizer were broadcast over the Warm Springs trail from the top of the Greyhawk lift through the finish area in an educated gamble to make the track fast and firm. It worked, and held for the slalom portion lower on the Warm Springs trail during the afternoon.

Among the women’s C group, local Sun Valley skier Julie Bell posted the fastest time, 1.04 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. This author (of the Northern division) was fastest in the slalom, but in the end, Jennifer Kaufman from Rocky Mountain claimed the fastest combined time. In Group D, perennial speedster Pepi Neubauer from Eastern raced flawlessly to the top spot. The next day, another Sun Valley local, Robin Sarchett, nabbed the top spot in the A group, with Ara Papazian from Far West besting the B’s. (Each day, each group winner received a commemorative Sun Valley plate and bottle of bubbly.)

Robin Sarchett

Ara Papazian

Super G

On Day 3, racers discovered a different scenario on the Warm Springs trail: a World-Cup style course rendered by an hour of rain followed by freezing temperatures the evening before the event.

The C/D group raced first in the morning, and Jennifer Kaufman and Pepi Neubauer had little trouble on the surface that seemed to have been injected with water, both edging out their competition for the top spot again among the women in group C and men in group D, respectively.

During the afternoon, the course conditions softened to a more forgiving surface. Robin Sarchett dominated the field, posting the fastest time for group A, with Mark Cater from Central Division earning the Sun Valley plate in the highly competitive group B.

Jennifer Kaufman

Pepi Neubauer

Giant Slalom

Conditions remained impressively firm for both the GS and the slalom, despite springlike temperatures. The C/D group ran GS on Warm Springs while the A/B group ran one trail over on Hemingway. This time, Kaufman and Ballard traded fastest runs, but Kaufman had the biggest margin, earning her third plate of the series. Ara Papazian took the B’s, and Robin Sarchett and Pepi Neubauer schooled the A’s and D’s again.

Waxing for the GS

Slalom

On the final day, the C’s and A’s ran the same courses, first on Lower Hemingway and then on Cozy, for the first time in memory. (With only 15 A’s in the field, it was too few to have their own course.) One of the highlights of the day was watching U.S. Ski Team slalom specialist and local Olympian Hailey Duke forerun the Hemingway course.

Robin Sarchett was impressive once again, taking the A’s. But things got really interesting among the C’s. Chris Katzenberger from Intermountain posted the fastest first run by a healthy 1.4 seconds over Kaufman, who then hooked a tip the second run, leaving the door open for Kaufman to sweep the C’s in an impressive feat of consistency over four events. Neubauer did the same in the D’s, and Jesse Scroggins from Pacific Northwest earned the fastest time among the B’s.

Division’s Cup and Spyder Masters Team.

The awards banquet the final evening included the usual mix of class awards and toast of gratitude to well-deserving race officials and volunteers. Steve Slivinski passed the post of chair of the USSA Masters National Committee to this author. Jackson Allred, a nearby potato farmer and masters racer, generously gave away bag after bag of potatoes in a random drawing, and then Franz Fuchsberger auctioned off a Fuxi racing suit to raise $1,150 for Hailey Duke to attend the U.S. Alpine Championships at Sugarloaf, Maine, her last event before retiring from the U.S. Ski Team.

Later in the evening, USSA Masters Coordinator Bill Skinner announced the 24 members of the 2016 Spyder U.S. Masters Ski Team; half the team members earned a spot for the first time.

Yet perhaps the most suspense of this 5-day ski racing extravaganza surrounded the Division’s Cup. This year, the cup went to…drum roll…Rocky Mountain!

For complete results from the Phillips 66 U.S. Alpine Masters Championships, go to www.ussamasters.org.

2016 SPYDER U.S. MASTERS SKI TEAM

2015 MOLECULE F SPEED SERIES WINNERS NAMED IN SUN VALLEY

The Super G at the Phillips 66 U.S. Alpine Masters Championships marked the final event in the winter-long Molecule F National Speed Series. After a winter of downhill and Super G competitions from coast to coast, the following racers earned the overall title in their group:
Group A/B: Erik Klemme (RM)
Group C: Lauren Beckos (RM)
Group D: Pepi Neubauer (EA)