A new downhill course at Fairfield's Soldier Mountain motivated 69 Intermountain Division junior alpine racers last week. So did the prospect of securing berths in the 2006 Chevrolet Junior 2 (ages 15-16) Olympics March 6-12 in Sun Valley.
Local racers nailed down two overall victories and seven additional podium finishes during the Apple's Bar & Grill Soldier Mountain Downhills Feb. 15-16. The race series attracted juniors from Idaho, Utah and Wyoming to the Fairfield hill.
Sun Valley Ski Team J1 Lauren Eder won the first two Snow King downhills Wednesday and Thursday, by .55 seconds over Park City's Taylor Guetschow and 2.02 seconds over Shalaya Kipp of Snowbird. Eder was second in Thursday's DH finale. So the 17-year-old from Hailey grabbed three podiums during the event.
Making the podium with a pair of third-place J1 (ages 17-19) finishes was Laura Speck of Sun Valley.
Dewey Moss of Ketchum Alpine Racing and Soren Ireland of Sun Valley clocked the best overall finishes for the local boys on the newly-christened 23-gate course, which dropped 402 vertical meters. J1 winner Moss was fifth in the DH opener, while J2 Ireland had two sevenths.
Ireland placed third in the J2 class in Thursday's afternoon race.
Sun Valley J3 (13-14) Riley Berman won the J3 class twice, rising as high as 10th overall Thursday morning. He was less than four seconds off the winning time recorded by Snowbird J1 racer Marcus Caston, 17.
In all, Ketchum Alpine Racing, the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation and Hailey Ski Team sent 21 racers of the 69-racer field to Soldier for the midweek race series.
The performances of J2s like Eder, Ireland, Scott Isaacs and Michael Greer boosted their chances of nailing down spots in the FIS Junior National Championships March 6-12 at Sun Valley, according to chief of race and Sun Valley Ski Team program director Ruben Macaya.
The Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation organizing committee of Macaya, Don Wiseman, Kathleen Eder, Kathy Rothgeb, Nick Maricich and Wally Rothgeb expects the top 250 national juniors ages 15-16 to attend the downhill, super giant slalom, giant slalom and slalom races.
Here are best class placings out of the three Apple's Bar & Grill Soldier Mountain DHs for the locals:
J1 men: 1—Dewey Moss. 4—Derek Blash.
J1 women: 1—Lauren Eder. 3—Laura Speck. 4—Amanda Alexander. 5—McKenna Peterson.
J2 men: 3—Soren Ireland. 4—Tom Johanson. 5—Scott Isaacs and Toby Eagan. 6—Michael Greer. 17—Bo Brown.
J2 women: 7—Alisa Durkheimer. 8—Alexis duPont. 9—Shanny Cohen. 10—Grayson Palmer. 12—Annie Shafran.
J3 men: 1—Riley Berman. 4—Gregory Roos. 8—Tanner Flanigan. 9—Chase Caulkins.
