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The Rock
Friday, February 20, 2009

Dear all,

I spent the last two days back at Gunstock - one day racing the Cliff Nyquist Memorial Slalom, which was a great event, and one day hammering out 16 runs on the Nastar hill testing some GS skis – and couldn’t have been more psyched. I was actually able to get some great data on my GS skis and there’s no substitute for logging tons of runs. I’m still going to race on the same pair of skis, but it was good to know I have two other pairs that are close. In certain snow conditions some thrived more than others, which is good to know.

Anyway, I’m back east and skiing at Stratton tomorrow for a couple of free runs and then I’m off to Lutsen, Minnesota for two GS races and two slalom races. The points will be decent so there’s a chance to score if someone blows it out; not to mention, they’re paying our way and there aren’t any good race series in the US or Europe right now so why not. The Lutsen race series starts on Thursday, February 26th. That’s about it from here.

Hope all is well, w

posted by Warner at 2/20/2009 08:30:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments


More snow...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hey all,

We’re in Mammoth trying to race some speed. We flew to Salt Lake from Calgary four days ago, spent the night there at Sam Sweetser’s place, met up with the Nurple (Sweetser’s 1998 Dodge Caravan), and drove to Mammoth the following morning. We’ve been out here for a few days and haven’t seen the top of the mountain, yet. The old joke, whenever you want a snowstorm plan a speed series, is proving to be correct. They’re expecting a storm a day for the next six days. And it’s been snowy and windy for the past week so the last couple days were cancelled. The women have been here for five days and haven’t done anything. On a positive note, there’s been some great powder skiing. We borrowed some powder skis yesterday and got some good runs in. Today is our best chance of getting a race off, we’re planning on racing Super G in a couple hours. Hopefully we’ll be able to push out of the gate.

Hope you’re all doing well. w

posted by Warner at 2/10/2009 12:56:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments


Still in the Hunt
Friday, February 06, 2009

My goal for this season is to win the Nor-Am GS Title. Going into Nakiska I was leading the GS standing by a couple points ahead of Jeffrey Frisch. The first day of GS, I was putting together a good first run before I came over a roll without enough direction and had to hammer on the breaks to stay in the course. I ended up finishing the run in 19th place 3.2 seconds off the lead. Second run, I was second on the run and moved upto10th place to pick up a few points, while Frisch finished 14th and Spence won to take over the Nor-Am GS lead. Yesterday, I had another disappointing first run with a mistake on the pitch that left me in 11th place. The second run, I pushed out of the gate as hard as I could and put together a solid run going a little too straight in a couple sections to finish the race in 6th place, behind Frisch in Spence.

So I’m in the Calgary Airport pretty disappointed with the series, but I’m still in contention with one race left in Lake Placid in mid March to reach my season goal. I haven’t talked to much about these races, but the winner of the Nor-Am title and the person that comes in second both receive a protected World Cup spot for the next year in that event. Below is a list of the current GS standings. I haven’t talked about the standings in earlier updates as it makes me quite nervous and I won’t talk about it again until its over, but it all comes down to one race in March. It’s certainly going to be an exciting finish. I was really hoping to lock it up here, but having big mistakes in one run of both races made that impossible. We’re still in it and we’ll be battling down to the last hundredth.

Hope you’re all doing well. Our plane is about to depart, w


Nor-Am GS Standings

Brad Spence CAN 305
Warner Nickerson USA 286
Jeffrey Frisch CAN 278
Will Gregorak 199
Tommy Ford 172

Points: 100 for 1st place, 80 2nd place, 60 3rd place, 50 4th place, 45 5th place, 40 6th place, 36 7th place, 32 8th place, 29 9th place, 26 10th place, 24 11th place, 22 12th place, 20 13th place, 18 14th, 16 15th place, from there its 1 point less to 30th place

posted by Warner at 2/06/2009 04:28:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments


Hey
Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Hey,

So I just wanted to drop you all a quick update. I’m up here in Nakiska, Alberta getting ready for two GS races. The last two days we raced slalom in two of the longest days on the hill this year. Since men and women were racing – alternating between runs – we were on the hill from 8:00 and left at 4:00. The first day, I had a big mistake first run and had a mediocre second run to finish 16th. Today I had a solid first run without any mistakes and was in 4th. Second run, I skied well and held onto 4th finishing eight-tenths off Truls Ove Karlson.

I’m off to bed, but tomorrow is going to be a good one. w

posted by Warner at 2/03/2009 11:25:00 PM (permanent link to this post) 0 comments