Lyta Foulk at NASTAR Nationals
NASTAR 2014 – LYTA FOULK
I had a good three days at the NASTAR Nationals in Snowmass, Colorado. I had a few goals, have fun, promote tele and the USTSA, encourage young telemarkers, and win. The first two days were age class races. Being a girl telemarker I only had one other person competing in my 14-15 tele age class. However, she lives in Eagle, Colorado, and I hope I have recruited her to at least ski in the Vail race next year.
On the Telemark 14-15 podium with Emily Mires, Stacy Cook and Steven Nyman
The highlight of the second day was being interviewed by Ski Magazine. Hopefully that makes the magazine. The reporter was real interested in tele racing and sounded like he might be interested in doing a whole article on it. By winning your age class, you qualified for the Race of Champions. They have four divisions in the Race of Champions, Alpine and Non-Alpine, men and women. So I raced against snowboarders with snowboard gates. It was actually a fun course.
Could have probably used my long-radius skis, actually was pretty steep on the top portion
They gave awards for fastest raw time and best handicapped time. The handicapping allows for the different ages and disciplines to race each other. I won the raw time by 6.5 seconds on a 40 second course, but was second in handicapped points. I got beat by a really cute 7-year-old telemarker from Snowmass that had a handicap more than twice mine (and there were no penalties for boot space). However, she was a fast little kid. She had the 3rd fastest raw time. Hopefully, she will stick with it and be on the National team someday.
On the Race-of-Champions podium with 2nd and 3rd, but also Casey Puckett, Steven Nyman, Eric Fisher, AJ Kitt, and Kaylin Richardson
I also talked with the guys at SRD and thanked them for their support. My dad wanted to work on Ted Ligety and get Shred to show the tele team some love with a sponsorship for helmets and goggles, but Ted only hung around the first day. Figured we could drop Madi’s name since she stalked him in the airport.
SRD – they said they would put this on their web page.
The top of the non-alpine divisions in the Race-of-Champions was all telemarkers with the snowboarders all in the bottom. If more telemarkers show up, they will need to do something else. It seemed a little unfair even though it was snowboard gates. They have enough snowboarders show up that they have their own course for the age class events. If we could increase the number of telemarkers, we could have our own course. The reporter also had involvement with NASTAR says they really want to attract all snowsports to the program. It is recreational racing (no jump, rap, or penalties), but it is fun, good swag, and great exposure. The skiing at Snowmass was great and I got everything out of it that I wanted.
Encouraging the new group of USTSA girls, the Poper twins from Steamboat
The rug rat that beat me on handicap points – Adelaide Ryerson
Fellow USTSA member Anna Allsberry and Casey Puckett