The first Monday of the new year marked the start of the Pat’s Peak Corporate Race Leagues. Not having raced since college and long having given up high speed ripping for low speed bark chewing, my primary aim of joining a race league was not the skiing but rather the camaraderie. Not to mention night skiing and racing beat my normal Monday activities. Which do not consist of doing anything other than browsing the internet and perhaps an occasional movie.

The Pats Peak course is a typical nearly straight line Nastar course without challenge or much variety week to week. I quickly discovered the novice friendly course required little advanced racing technique which allowed older groomer lovers with high handicapps to top out the results with marginal times. The handicapping system also assumes that younger racers are faster than older racers which is not always true. The best ski racers are never those fresh out of college but rather the seasoned pros and veterans that have logged many seasons on the tours. A benefit for our team was the telemark handicap which suggested that a racer on telemark skis needs a huge point advantage which is not necessarily the case for telemarkers that can alpine turn. Unfortunately for our snowboarding member of the team, the handicap system does not assist snowboarders at all and assumes that they are nearly as fast as skiers.

Regardless of handicap or point structure, our team has a great crew of guys that are fun to ski with. After warm up runs down Cyclone, we made our way over to FIS for inspection and two rounds of dual format racing. I took fourth place on the team with an overall middle of the pack finish. We finished the night out with three runs down Pat’s bump run called Hurricane including a final non-stop top to bottom bump run.