Well, we had the one of last big races of the season for Michigan
yesterday. The inaugural Black Mt Classic 30k: New race, new course, new
challenge.

The event, which is located in the NE corner of the state, south of
Cheboygan, was hosted by local top racer Dennis Paul who worked his butt
off. It was snowy then warm and rainy then FROZEN. He had to get the DNR
state crew to do the right grooming and was worried they might not
respond, not having ever groomed a race before, or in such challenging
weather. It was a real nail biter! This is Denny's home turf and one of
the highest regarded classic trails---with rolling medium but
challenging hills. Well, the DNR pulled thru and groomed the course
exactly on the tactical time they'd agreed on in light of the weather:
all night long, just before the race. Denny told them to pull the tracks
on the steep downhills and corners, but he ended up getting something a
little different. They groomed most of the downhills smooth...and most
of the uphills as well. Both of these surfaces turned into ice-skating
rinks. Getting interesting? That was only the half of it. Whenever the
machine was laying down track, it threw up ICEBERGS everywhere, from
2"-12" in size, which froze into the trail everywhere but in the tracks,
and sometimes there as well. Getting out of the tracks was scary.
Staying in the tracks was tough. Quite often the tracks were what Mike
Seaman called "gutters"---just a half-cylinder shape. Oh yeah!

About 75 racers showed up. But over a dozen didn't start after they saw
the trail. ...The rest of the crazies were ready for anything.

I stayed the night with pals at the trailhead in the nice Chateau motel.
We got up early and tested wax. Purple klister was the ticket. After
testing and everyone else's ski prep we ran out of purple so I ended up
with Swix on one ski and Toko on the other. Cute. 45F the day before.
25F race morning temp.

The race was a rocket rollercoaster with danger everywhere.

Don Camp described it perfectly: It was like the old days. Mayhem
everywhere. A challenge to stay upright and on course. A technical
skier's delight, perhaps.

The start was wild, with all the icebergs. A certain Mike bobbled in
front of me, as usual. Then Bob Smith, a true mayhem kind of skier, did
a buttplant in a big iced-over, but not quite, water puddle just as we
entered the course from the start area (which was the road and parking
lot). Splash.

First big downhill saw guys tumbling like bowling pins. Dodging was
hilarious, due to the icebergs and disappearing, reappearing tracks. But
I kept my superspeed rolling. Then came a wild highspeed descent and
trail-split. I was going so fast on the big bend to the left that I
could not have taken the lefthand trail and just flew wide onto the
righthand trail. Thankfully I saw a little "Race this way" sign flash by
pointing the way I went. Half of the lead group, which was just ahead of
me, sadly, oh so sadly, went the wrong way. And oh so sadly this group
included one oh-so-observant high-tech skier whose name starts with
"Mike." : ) I yelled at them and they turned around. I was with
another guy and yelled, laughing "Let's go man! We got a gap!" ..."Uh, I
hope we're not the ones who are lost..." Sure enough finally we saw
another race sign and put the hammer down. Now that's a Backyard
advantage for ya! Paying attention to NAVIGATION pays off! Well, I guess
I just have to thank centrifugal force really. Except I did verify the
course direction. Hilarious.

After awhile we all regroup and Mike and I ski together some and for the
next half hour I was on the heels of the leaders. But Mike had better
grip for the hills and got away. Sheesh. It was a hellacious thing that
first half. The hills were quite big and slick and hard as a skating
rink.

Dell Todd reported coming over the CREST of a hill and being thrown on
his butt then sliding down the whole next downhill that way.

Our eager new NSR team racer wild guy, Ryan Robinson (NCAA track),
really had his hands full. Reports came in of him going down on a hill,
getting up then getting creamed time and time again before he could get
out of there.

I had grip in a track but on those slicks uphills I had NOTHING. I was
****ED. I went to herringbone and the dang edges had nothing to bite
into. I slid out a few times on the ups. I finally left the trail on one
hill and tried skiing on the natural crust alongside. Still sucked. Man,
I was SO READY for charging the hills. It woulda been REAL EASY to give
up on this course, I tell ya! But I got determined to not have a bad day
and to get some kick. I figured out that if I was real gentle and put
one ski in a tiny depression that part of the groomer left that I could
get a little purchase. Also the herringboners ahead of me started
leaving a little chewed up dust-slush in the center. I hate boning and
don't do it quick. The others looked far more comfy with it. But I
bombed every downhill on full mayhem mode. As usual, my old (backyard)
skis were VERY fast. There were two fast sweeping left downhills
followed by bigger drops. I survived the first crazy left sweep by
riding up on the righthand wall of ice. I slid out on the second and put
a knee down. I had two knee-downs that day. I didn't hear of anyone
skiing clean, but Don said he only had one knee-down. I worked on
breathing deep and low in diaphragm and trying to relax. There were
quite a few interesting obstacles along the way: a nice long jump on the
fastest downhill, several large skewering sticks embedded in the trail,
gentle pine boughs waisthigh over the tracks. Great fun! : )

I skied with two distinct diagonal styles. One long, low and deep with
lots of heel plant. Then I finally realized that to really handle the
steeper uphills I needed to do the new Pete style, more upright on balls
of feet. It was hard to breath deep that way but I got grip and kept
velocity up. After the big ridiculous first 10k of ice hills, nobody
passed me. I kept seeing a few people not too far ahead of me. ---One
was doing a nice V1 with a strider right on his tails.

I heard of a good half dozen racers who skated quite a bit. A few of
them told me about it. No one did any self-DQ and no DQs. I would not
have let someone V1 in front of me. I saw one herringboner getting some
glide but that didn't bug me. Seeing the V1 marks in the moderate
uphills bugged me.

The race was about a third DP with plenty of KDP. I did that at first
with textbook forward lean, but then I realized that if I stood up that
I could just keep popping it and glide better and really scoot along. I
did a very upright KDP and flew. It was kind of humorous. Like a scooter
more than a skier. But I did whatever it took to keep the breeze feeling
fast. I rotated between the two diag styles and could keep good mo going
with both of them. It warmed as the race went on and I gripped better
and the hills got more moderate. I really reeled in the two guys ahead
on one big long medium uphill. I do think my uphill diag is darn nice. I
just love doing it and would LOVE to get a chance to really do so
someday. This race was OK but the first half was just too insane. The
guys left me with their DP. Oh well!

I noticed that I didn't ski very well when I was with others. I'd tense
up and start slipping those ultra-tricky uphills. By myself I was going
better.

So, I had the good fortune to finish 8th overall and 3rd agegroup. What
fun! Jay T's sig-line is true indeed: several of our big dogs were
overseas at the World's. But this also made the race more like the old
days, with a smaller more "mortal" field. In the old days we also would
have 2 races each weekend day and so not all the dogs would be at every
race.

So I think that Backyard made a pretty nice REMATCH after all! Yet,
again, Mike beat me by a good bit and had a great race himself, with 6th
overall, 1:59. Winner was 1:52? Mike said he came in 2:20 ahead of me,
but the results said 4:00. I'll go by 2:20. : ) Anyway, I closed the
gap %-wise by a hefty chunk. I didn't blow up. I had a 180 ave HR: good
redline. We both moved up on the leaders, I think. The Backyard approach
of training in crappy conditions, with lots of ducking and weaving of
obstacles, came thru with flying colors in this event. A whole buncha
people who'd been whuppin me didn't do so this time. And I heard some
good noise made for "go backyard" and "go retro!" Some fast Germans
liked the outfit.

The winner used no-wax skis! Oh, and it was DENNY PAUL! How about that?
Run your first race and win it. Good job, Denny! It was one for the
books. : )

I did screw up with the eyewear: make sure your eyewear is suitable for
ski racing. The darn topframe of the shop-glasses I grabbed on the way
out of the house obscured my view so I had to crane my head up a bit the
whole time and this was killing me and starting a terrible snowball of
neck and upper shoulder stress. The coaches are right: keep your neck in
line with your upper spine, neutral and relaxed or you'll be hurting.
But due to the crazy eye-watering downhills, glasses were good to have
so I didn't toss em.

I had all my wax when I finished. I ironed in green klister binder. My
pal had scraped his skis of some bad Universal we'd tested. He'd had
green klister on under the Uni and just plastic scraped and put purple
on. I didn't see him do this. He lost all his wax promptly. He thought
he still had enough green on after a modest plastic scrape. Not.
Anything like purple klister worked. Anything else FAILED. Except for
waxless.

Crazy!

--

Jeff Potter
****
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