Fast Facts on Alpine Racing Gear

by Steven Threndyle from Winter 2010 issue

While you ’re sitting watching the Sprint NexTel championships on the Speed Channel,you might be thinking,“Gee,the Toyota Camry in my driveway sure doesn ’t look like Darryl Waltrip ’s.” Similarly, as we watch racers flip off their skis in the finish area at Whistler, Manny Osborne-Paradis’s Rossignols sure aren’t built the same as the Rossi Avengers in the Ski Canada Test last year at Big White.

Indeed. In all cases the similarities are skin — or topsheet, in this case deep.However, consumer- oriented race skis with topsheet graphics similar to World Cup skis have always been major sellers on the shop floor. Popular models over the years include the Rossignol Strato 102, Dynamic VR17, Fischer RC4 and C4 Racing Cut, Atomic ARC Racing “red sleds ” and Rossignol ’s 4S.

As skiing factions-off into more and distinct genres (Park &Pipe, All-Mountain, Big Mountain, Touring etc.), the racing influence on the public has been diluted. (K2 long ago recognized this broadening of skiers’ prime interests; and after the Games in February, Salomon is getting out of the racing game.)

Nevertheless, racing still has its followers and they’re loud in an Olympic year. Ski Canada chatted with Denis Leclaire at Rossignol and Ian Morrell at Head about some of the more interesting aspects of 2010 race gear.

•Downhill racers like Bode Miller will start the season testing more than 30 skis, which are then whittled down to five or six by the end of the year. Some skis will have harder bases than others to match the temperature of the snow on any given day.

• Designed for lightning-quick edge changes, shapely slalom skis have a sidecut of about
13 metres, while more svelte GS skis have a turn radius of roughly 26 metres. GS racers
angulate so much that on some slopes their inside hip will graze the surface of the
racecourse.

• One company — Isocore —manufactures all base material and edges for all ski
manufacturers.

• World Cup and Olympic regulations demand that racecourses consist of 100 per cent
man-made snow. If that wasn ’t hard enough, for 2010, the surface for all men ’s
and women ’s courses will be injected with water —if a high-pressure system rolls
in, then racers could be competing on a glorified skating rink. The friction and forces
generated by racers is so great that bases and edges can develop what is called razor
burn. Ski bases can heat up so much that by the time the racer is near the bottom of
the course, the bases will begin to melt and slow the ski. Sometimes a service tech will
actually replace a strip of the base that has been affected by razor burn with a harder,
heat-resistant material.

• To level the field competitively, all skis must adhere to certain specifications in regards
to minimum and maximum overall length, turning radius (determined mathematically
by the sidecut measurements of the ski) and binding stand height —how much “lift ” a
binding plate can provide on any given ski.

• Most recreational ski bindings have a “DIN setting ” in a range between 4-12 or 6-14.
Some World Cup racers use bindings with a DIN setting as high as 34.

• One service technician is responsible for between two and four racers, depending
on the company. Relentless record-keepers about every combination of wax and snow
temperature known to man, the techs are responsible for wax-testing their racers ’
skis —in some cases the night before a race.

• Brands with relatively minor presence ((outside of junior/club racing) in the Canadian
market, such as Stöckli and Blizzard,are well- represented on World Cup podiums and will be a force at Whistler for sure.

• The freight bills to ship skis to North America for World Cup races at the beginning
of each season can be as high as $40,000 per company.

• For the most part, race skis feature traditional wood-core/laminate construction with none of the torsion bars, vibration absorbers or other performance-altering technology
embedded in the skis seen at retail.

See also Raceline