The Maranacook ave race will go on as scheduled, with or without nature’s help.
The school’s Nordic coaches and parents made sure of that.
Despite a week of detrimental weather and conditions, the race is on track for its Saturday morning start time in Readfield thanks to efforts from parents of skiers and coaches to patch up blemishes on the Maranacook trail, head coach Steve DeAngelis said.
“(Tuesday) night and the night before, we’ve had a number of parents out and myself, we’ve been shoveling snow,” he said. “We wheeled snow in from off the snowbanks near the school and dragged it out on the course and spread it where it was needed. Not exactly high tech, but it’s working.”
They may have received help, as DeAngelis said he was hoping for a few inches of snow Wednesday night after the area got little Tuesday.
“If we get a couple of inches, that’d be awesome,” he said.
The weeks before, featuring warmer temperatures and rain, weren’t friendly to the course, which deteriorated to the point that the wave race — Maranacook’s only home event of the year — was in danger of moving.
“We had a lot of places where the sun had hit and where the rain had gotten to it and were just bare,” DeAngelis said. “And there were other spots where water had come up through the snow. We had enough rain where it made icy spots, and you can’t ski with that.
“There was definitely a chance it would have to be moved.”
The rain held off in time for this week, however, and with the temperature dropping, the team — with the help of some volunteers — went to work.
“It’s our only home race and the kids love it,” DeAngelis said. “You have backup sites. You could have gone to Telstar or Sugarloaf, but we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to do it at home. … It’s worth it for us to put that effort in to have it at home.”
The goal is to make a firm, packed track, and DeAngelis is confident that’s what will be there Saturday morning.
“You start well ahead of time so the snow has time to set up. You don’t want to just throw loose snow on the course the night before,” he said. “It’s going to be great. We wouldn’t do it there unless it was really good conditions.”
• • •
Any ice from earlier rainy days shouldn’t be an issue at Kents Hill, which is hosting a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference and Mountain Valley Conference slalom event.
“It’ll be fast and it’ll be hard,” said Mt. Blue Alpine coach Mark Cyr, whose Cougars will be among the teams competing. “I’m sure they made plenty of snow when they could and they’ve got plenty of coverage. The rain doesn’t really hurt that much. With the groomers now, you can chop up anything that gets too hard.”
The slicker track is actually better for competition, Cyr said, than a slope full of fluffy powder.
“It’s hard and fast, and really what we look for,” he said. “We don’t want soft snow when it comes to ski races. It’s exactly what it should be and what we want. … It’s hard, but you certainly can get an edge.”
As for that snow DeAngelis is hoping for across town? It doesn’t matter for Alpine, just so long as the mountain gets the temperature drop with or without accumulation.
“Ski racing these days doesn’t rely on natural snow anymore. We rely on man-made almost 100 percent,” Cyr said. “As long as we have cold nights we can make snow. That’s actually almost better than the natural snow.”
Drew Bonifant — 621-5638
dbonifant@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @dbonifantMTM
Send questions/comments to the editors.
