Skinny Santa Solstice 20K Freestyle

Dave reports:

Not bad for the first race of the season.  Beautiful day on the beautiful Woodland Hills course in Elk River, with hard-packed but not icy snow at 10 degrees and 85% humidity.  I figured you needed fluoros with the humidity and the debris in the snow, as well as skis that weren’t going to wash out on the hard surface.  So I went right down the line with Fast Wax’s recommendation: Flite Arctic over HSF Green over low-fluoro Teal, and used medium-stiff flex Rossis with Finn Sisu’s uni grind.  At this point in my racing career, I count on fast skis to keep me in the race, and I had good ones.  What I lost in the uphills I gained back in the downhills (and there are a lot of fun downhills on that course).  Ended up winning my age class and finishing 21^st overall in a very competitive field.

The rest of the Vakava contingent had a successful day as well.

Evgeny Beletskiy 5^th

Nate Porath 7^th

Ryan Atwell 11^th

Mike Nohr 52^nd (starting his comeback after taking a break from skiing for 15 years)

Mary Beth Tuttle 4^th, age-class winner

Katy Splan 8^th, age-class winner

Anna Peterson 9<sup>th 

Here are lots of photos from the race.</sup>