Racing has begun!

Races are beginning to take place across the country. Nastar races have started at Breckenridge, Nub's Nob, Bryce, and Seven Springs. Canadian Masters races were held at Mont Tremblant on 12/6 and 12/7. There will also be the first ASRA races this weekend at Killington on 12/12 - 12/14. That's two 50 gate GS's which are followed by a SL on Sunday. Also, NASTAR pacesetters will begin this week and end up on the East coast next tuesday. Check back for more updates on upcoming ski races.

Early Season Racing at Mt. Tremblant

There will be two opening races held at Mont-Tremblant on December 5-6, 2008. These are Canadian Masters races and are also open to USSA Masters members. Check out the Canadian Masters website (http://www.acamasters.com) or email Simon Marchand-Fortier at simon.m.fortier@prattemorrissette.ca for more information.

ASRA Ski Racing

ASRA (http://www.skiracer.com) is a great ski racing league for any skiers in the PA, NJ, or NY area looking for competitive ski racing. Skiers can sign up for ASRA races without pre-registering and no membership is required. These races typically offer a discounted lift ticket and members can even receive discounted lodging and equipment pricing. For information on this years ASRA race schedule, check out their race schedule page (http://www.skiracer.com/sched.html).

Early Season Ski Racing

Have you ever wanted to get in some early season ski racing, but you could not even find a mountain that was even running NASTAR. It may be easy to find a place to race in January, but how do you get that early season edge by running gates in December or even November!

Some of the earliest races can be found in New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts. These races usually include NASTAR, PSIA events, and USSA Clinics. The latter of the two are scheduled events and can be found at http://www.ussa.org and at http://www.psia.org. If you are looking for NASTAR then you have a much bigger challenge ahead of you.

While NASTAR is geared towards the novice racer, experienced racers can greatly benefit from early season practice by getting alot of runs on NASTAR courses. NASTAR races are hosted at moutains across the nation and typically are open on a regular basis beginning in December. Early season NASTAR races may not be found on many schedules, but past season results on NASTAR's website (http://www.nastar.com) can provide clues on which resort will begin racing first.

Based on the 2007-2008 season, the following resorts on the east coast were open for early season NASTAR racing: Wachusett(MA), Sugar(NC), Stowe(VT), Hunter(NY), Song(NY), and Whiteface(NY). So if you are interested in doing some early season gate training in a NASTAR course then keep an eye on these ski resorts.