Our 2017 Survey is now available and will be open through Sunday, April 23. Your feedback is appreciated and will be used for our demographics packets we create for our sponsors and participating ski areas.
We had another successful Championships Weekend at Giants Ridge March 3-5. The weather was fabulous and the conditions were awesome! We had a total of 603 racer starts during the three days. The Ski Challenge OPEN Team Race was held on Friday. Divisional Team Racing was held on Saturday and Sunday. And, the new “King of the Hel” race was held on Saturday afternoon. Scroll down to see more about each race.
“NoWax” team was the winner out of 18 teams again for the third year in a row! The team included Mark Cater, Bill Christopherson, Jukka Mahonen, Doug Nordmeyer, Terry Lutz, and Pat Hiller. We had 101 participants in the race. An awards ceremony was held Friday night at the new chalet next to the Burnt Onion Bar.
To see all results click here:
Team racing took place on Saturday and Sunday of the Championships Weekend. Divisions 1, 3 and 5 were on Saturday and Divisions 2, 4, and 6 were on Sunday.
To see all results CLICK HERE
This was the first time for the King of the Hel race held on Saturday on Helsinki. This race was open to all Ski Challenge members and non Ski Challenge members. If you were a Ski Challenge member, we took your “rated Handicap” going into the race and compared what your earned handicap was in the race. We then determined a % improvement (or un-improvement). We crowned a King and a Queen of the Hel based on the best % of improvement. We also gave prizes to the fastest racer in various age groups.
An awards ceremony was held on Saturday night in the new Chalet next to the Burnt Onion Bar. Gina Tester was crowned Queen of the Hel. Eddie Overholt was crowned King. To see all the results for this race follow these links:
King of the Hel – 2017
This was a fun race that gave racers who enjoy racing on Helsinki a chance race on that run. We had about 25 people pre-registered for this event. We ended up with 84 participants. It was an open running order allowing participants to run when they wanted. We did not anticipate that this race would be so popular. We plan on having a King of the Hel next year, but will probably go to a set running order based on when you sign up for the race.
To see photos from the weekend you can find links on our website here: PHOTOS. Or you can find the photos on our facebook page here: PHOTOS
Thanks for the good season!? Well, thanks for participating in the season! It was a tough end to our regular season league racing. With the warm temperatures in February spilling into March, it meant an entire week (much of our week 7) had to be postponed. We were able to get all of our Wild Mountain races in. We tried to make up our Buck Hill leagues that were postponed. We got most of them in except our Monday, Thursday and Friday leagues. Due to some thin snow coverage, a few turned up rocks, and the lack of cold temperatures, Buck Hill just couldn’t get enough coverage back up at the top of our race run to hold those make up races.
Black Diamond was kind enough to let us have an awards ceremony for each league last week. Fun was had by those who attended with door prize games and awards.
Buck Hill Monday Night Fun!
For the 2016 Preseason season we ended up with 302 racers starts. This is a 23% decrease from 2016. Unfortunately, with the slow start to winter, our first week of racing had to be postponed. Buck Hill Friday was combined with Buck Hill Tuesday. We were able to get all three weeks of Wild Mountain racing in, but had to get our three week league series crammed into two weeks at Buck Hill. Buck does not allow racing during the Holiday Break so we just didn’t have enough time for three weeks. Look for some new ideas for preseason next year. We are going to attempt to offer more gate training and open races during the December preseason time.
The total number of racer starts for our regular, seven week league series was 6,540. This was an 11% decrease from 2016. We will chalk this one up to weather once again. 2017 was the first time in Ski Challenge’s 30 year history that we were not able to complete our seven week league series for three of our 14 leagues. That decrease probably would be close to non existent if we did not have such a warm February and March.
We appreciate the patience and understanding that our racers have shown during this tough season. Here’s to hoping for a normal winter next year!
BHTHUR – Week 7 Awards – Thursday, March 9
Buck Hill has informed us that they are unable to get enough snow to stick at the top of the race run in order to put gates in and make a safe race course. So, we are not going to be able to race on Thursday, March 9.
We will be having an award ceremony / party on Thursday night. Meet in the regular Ski Challenge Room. Doors will open at 6 pm. Awards at 7 pm. Black Diamond will have beer specials for the night.
It saddens us that the season has to end this way. We apologize if these schedule changes do not work for everyone. We are doing the best we can with this terrible weather.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Most of you probably already know that Buck Hill is closed today. BUT, we will be having an awards ceremony for Buck Hill FRIDAY league tonight. We are able to use the regular Ski Challenge Room next to the Black Diamond Bar.
Here is the schedule for tonight:
We will have some door prize “games”. And, will base all of our awards on six weeks of racing. The Fastest and Most Improved of the season awards will be modified to include racers with 3 or more races for the season instead of 4 or more.
We apologize for the messy ending of our league series. It’s very disappointing that the weather has been so awful the last few weeks. Hopefully many of you were able to attend Championships at Giants Ridge this past weekend where the weather was perfect and the conditions were great.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Most of you probably already know that Buck Hill is closed today. BUT, we will be having an awards ceremony for Buck Hill Monday league tonight. We are able to use the regular Ski Challenge Room next to the Black Diamond Bar.
Here is the schedule for tonight:
We will have some door prize “games”. And, will base all of our awards on six weeks of racing. The Fastest and Most Improved of the season awards will be modified to include racers with 3 or more races for the season instead of 4 or more.
We apologize for the messy ending of our league series. It’s very disappointing that the weather has been so awful the last few weeks. Hopefully many of you were able to attend Championships at Giants Ridge this past weekend where the weather was perfect and the conditions were great.
Come out to any of our Buck Hill make up races this week and next week and guest race for only $10. At our BHFRI Make up race on Tuesday, 3/7 we will be taking four total runs!
The Buck Hill Monday race is postponed this week. We will make up this race (week 7) on Monday, February 27. Midwest Masters has graciously let us join them that night.
We will run our race like a normal Ski Challenge race. There will be some Midwest Masters racers also racing within our running order.
We will be meeting and having awards in the Hutch as the normal room we use is reserved for a different group that night.
We apologize if this schedule change does not work for everyone. We are doing the best we can with this terrible weather.
Please let any of your fellow teammates who may have opted out of our e-mail list know of this change.
Week 7 is coming fast. At week 7, we have a lot of different awards. See below how these awards are figured!
Team Awards
The team in each league with the most points accumulated after the last race is declared Champions of that league and awarded a team trophy. Medallions are awarded to 1st , 2nd and 3rd place team members, ribbons to 4th and 5th. In the event of a tie, we will compare points of the 7th racer, then 8th, then 9th. After the 9th racer we will go to bonus points. Bonus points are determined by how much you get your medal by for your age and gender.
Individual Awards:
Members must have participated in at least 4 of 7 weekly races to qualify for individual awards such as Fastest and Most Improved of the league or for their team.
For Adult + Kids leagues, both kids and adults will be honored separately for Fastest and Most Improved of the league. All age leagues will combine kids and adults for awards. Most Valuable of the league will go to one person. This could be an adult or kid. It will not be separated out for kids and adults.