Mansfield Nordic Club

It was a great Sunday for racing! According to a NENSA post, between the three large citizen/popular races on the schedule in New England this Sunday, a total of over 600 skiers were registered to compete! That’s an awesome stat and a real reason why our part of the country has such a strong skiing culture.

MNC members were mostly split between the two Vermont-based events: The Silver Fox Trot at Riker, and the Craftsbury Scramble at (of course) Craftsbury.

The Silver Fox featured a big BKL field, and races from lollipop competitions all the way to middle school and open races where Juniors and Masters went head-to-head. The bright sun and fast snowmaking loop meant for speedy racing and fun challenging corners.

Start of one of the BKL races at the Silver Fox

Our middle school contingent was well represented by skiers like Brooke, Jonah, Matias, and Dylan. Here’s a short clip of them in action.

The biggest mass start of the day was the Open/Citizen’s race, where a large group of MNC Juniors and Masters took part. Unlike an Eastern Cup, this was self-seeded and so even arriving to the start 5 minutes early was a bit too late for most of the Juniors (and their unaware coach Adam) and so starting near the back made for an extra fun challenge. Mass starts at Rikert are notoriously sketchy (a wide field that narrows quite rapidly, with large trees acting as guard rails) but this provided extra practice for bigger races! The crew skied great, and it is so fun to have races with everyone competing. Special shoutout to MNC’s southernmost racer Dave Johnstone who made the trip up from the Brattleboro area to fly the club colors.

Results for U16 and Citizen races here

Up north of Rikert, the MNC skiers were teaming up for a partnered relay featuring jumps, bumps and obstacles.

With a slate of funny and clever team names, it’s hard to tell just what kind of MNC speed was in the  mix, but we are aware that the team Last One Fast One, comprised of Sara Falconer and Michael Gaughan, took a podium and some great points! Congrats to that quick duo,

Results for the open mied scramble can be found here, and the main page of Webscorer has links to other categories too!

Most of the Juniors will have a week off from NENSA racing before really hitting a big slate of competitions for the rest of the winter. Masters have options ranging from the White Mountain Classic, to the Gunstock Freestyle or Prospect Sprints. Check out the NENSA calendar for links!

Note the date of this race has changed from Saturday (1/15) to Sunday (1/16). You can register for the race here.

Times vary from BKL races in the morning to the open/citizen races after noon.

Temps will be very cold the day prior, with abrasive manmade snow. To prepare for this, put at least two cold layers of wax (Swix CH4, Toko Blue, or other similar cold, hard glide wax) into your skis to harden the base. If you have a cold, hard graphite wax, apply this layer first (scraping and brushing before subsequent layers).

If you have Toko X-Cold powder or Swix CH3 powder, these are good options to put on the skis as a final layer. The preferred method here is to crayon or drip an amount of blue or green wax onto the skis first. Then, before ironing, sprinkle cold powder over the glide zone. Iron the glide wax and cold powder together. See video below for reference. Be sure to brush out skis thoroughly!