The Inside Edge - Locals hold their own at Smokin' Aces Slopestyle

n World Cup — Mikaela Shiffrin added another discipline to her World Cup win list, taking Gold at Crans Montana, Switzerland. She was 7th in the Super G, then crushed the field in Slalom. With four technical races left before Alpine Finals, she holds a 298 point lead in the overall standings, is first in Slalom and second in Giant Slalom.

n Night of Knights — The Schweitzer NoLight (Ooops, Starlight) Race Series came to a close last Friday. We say “NoLight” because someone forgot to hit the switch until the very end, adding another dimension of difficulty to the competition. But let’s get one thing clear, the fastest skier out there was Chris Acosta. Unfortunately for him, this entire competition is based upon times adjusted by age, gender and method of conveyance (Skis, boards, telemark).

So, the top performers for the month were: Male skier – Scott Barksdale; Female Skier – Tracy Tuttle; Male Telemark – Steve York; Female Telemark – Dig Chrismer; Male Snowboard – Peter Klein; and Female Snowboard – Dani Demmons.

No. 5 BadKnights (Scott Barksdale, Alex Wohlaib, Rudy Kadzejs, Brian McCrum and Brian Sturgis) won the team competition by a large margin, followed by Our Skis are Dragon and Boogie Knights. Time to go into 11 months of training for next year folks.

n Smokin’ Aces Slopestyle — Schweitzer hosted the Smokin Aces Tour slopestyle event last Saturday. Riders gathered from Montana, California, Washington and Idaho to compete. The course featured several rails and three jumps. Several local athletes were amongst the 41 participants.

Andre Kemink placed 5th in the skier open class, including a 900 as one of his jumps. Mac McGarry placed 8th in the open class. Jackson Reed placed second in the under 13 year-old class with Kildy Pogue following in third place. Payton Cox placed 5th and Aiden Hazan 4th in 14 and over snowboard class. Hunter Elliott reached podium with 3rd place, while McCabe Huckabee placed 6th in the 14 and over skier field, the largest competitive class. Koda Hartley placed 6th amongst 13 and under skiers.

The next Smokin’ Aces competition will be at Big Sky, Montana on March 24-25.

n Potpourri — Unfortunately, results for the Masters races were not yet posted by press time. Watch here next week for a full report. Check here next week for Emerald Empire Speed results.

Any comments, recommendations or contributions to this column may be sent to Shep Snow by email at shep@thesnowschool.com. Negative feedback should be sent to someone else.

The Inside Edge runs every Thursday during ski season in the Daily Bee.