I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and I hope your holiday season was a ton of fun. I spent most of mine with family and friends throughout the east coast.

And now we’re back to racing in Sunday River, Maine for four Nor-Am races (2 GS and 2 SL). I’ve always enjoyed Sunday River so I was psyched to come up here and race. Today was our first day of GS racing and it wasn’t the pleasant Sunday River I remember. It was miserably cold. I woke up this morning a bit tired after sharing a full size bed with Roger to look outside and see what looked to be the coldest, windiest day of the season. It’s nice to be back in Maine. Anyway, we hopped into the car to see the thermometer reading -5 °F as we drove up to the mountain after calling a few people to see if inspection was postponed. Unfortunately, everything was on schedule.

Inspection was painfully cold and windy so when I got back to the lodge I quickly bought some boot heaters and a neck warmer for the race. The organizers ended up pushing back the start and lowing it because the wind just didn’t let up. First run, I put together a solid run with two pivots or speed skids to stay on track and found myself in 3rd only a tenth of a second off Tim Kelley.

Second run, I was pretty fired up. I hammered out of the gate and took a direct line down the first pitch. The course became exceptionally turny and I found myself pretty late, but still in it. I kept the tempo up and made some good turns down the top of the second pitch and then got a bit late again. The snow held up great considering it snowed about 25 inches in the last four days up here, but it was starting to break down near the finish. I kept a higher line on the bottom and snapped off a few more good turns to come through the finish line and move into first. It felt great to win my first Nor-Am GS!

And it was fun to share it with my Dad, Roger, Steve Grant, Ray Fougere, and our coach for the week Josh Bedard!

Now it’s time to get fired up for another day of GS tomorrow.

Hope you’re all doing well. W

P.S. I ended up scoring an 11 point race, the best GS result of my career.