Warm weather greeted 68 downhillers on Soldier Mountain's Course Air Ride/Salmon River Run earlier this week for the annual FIS/USSA Soldier Mountain ENL Derby organized by Ken Corrock's Soldier Mountain Alpine Racing.
It was so warm, they had to stage the races by 11 a.m. or noon before the sun took over.
There were five downhill races. The two FIS (International Ski Federation) races and one USSA race counted for Intermountain Cup standings, and the two J3 (ages 13-14) only races with some added older competitors generated a point base—since the J3s don't have any seed points, Corrock said.
Winning Entry League ENL/FIS races were Paul Warner, 17, of McCall, 19-year-old Mark Syrovatka of Canada and Rowmark Ski Academy's 15-year-old Linnea Zavala of Red Lodge, Mont. Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation racer Bailey Ireland was second to Zavala in both women's downhills.
Among the ENL/FIS men, best Sun Valley/Hailey Ski Team placings were Miles Fink-Debray fourth, independent Michael Radford and Miles Sweek fifth, Bergen Palmer seventh and Scott Smith ninth.
Ireland won the USSA women's DH over Zavala with top J3 Cate Fairley 11th. Sweek and Palmer went 1-2 among J2s (ages 15-16) in the USSA boys' race Tuesday morning. Corrine Smith and Nicole Roos went 4-5 in J3 girls. Other USSA class placings in that one were Scott Smith 5-J1, Jordan Smith 10-J1, Tanner Farrow 8-J2, Ryan Foster 13-J2, Gardner Cord 14-J2, Tyler Davis 16-J2 and Tanner Dirstine 20-J2.
And here are the top local J3 placings in those DH sprints:
1—Cate Fairley. 2—Kipling Weisel. 3—KJ Savaria. 4—Connor Farrow. 5—Corrine Smith and Ben Kanellitsas. 6—Nicole Roos and Zack Freeman. 8—Cole Caulkins. 9—Taylor Adler and Alexandre Bridgeman. 10—Logan Shipley.
