Hundreds Gather for Queensbury throwdown

Between 23 High School Teams from across New York, a field of ESG and JO hungry competitors and a deep Masters field, the two lap course at Crandall Park saw its fair share of fast skiers this past Saturday. Fortunately for the participants, Queensbury's Bob Underwood and his staff of round-the-clock scientists had developed a surface well suited for the nordic-beatdown the trails took. The mix of crushed pine debris, sugar snow and secret German plastic polymer made for an awesome course and a great day of racing (all kidding aside....kudos to Bob Underwood and all those that volunteered to shovel snow and prep the course!)

The Team Director and most of Team HURT was out in full force to defend their home turf and big points were earned in the Junior and Master Races. Brian Halligan led the HURT J2 with Austin and Adam following close behind. J1 Will Frielinghaus had a dominate performance in the J1/OJ race coming second only to Charlie Bencze. In the Men's race, Dave Kvam led HURT with a strong 7th place finish. His attempt to battle the three headed "Day-Hettenbaugh-Maynard" monster from the West was thwarted as the Rochesterians threw down 3 of the top 6 fastest times. When asked about the growing monkey on his back Kvam replied "mummble mummble @$%#freakin grrrr@#$r mummble more grrr damn mumble intervals mumble!" His 7th place finish now makes it the 3138th time he has finished a race in 7th place. Team Director Huneck feels like Vegas might be the best place for him.

Despite the Rochester beatdown, Kvam had very strong support from his HURT teammates as Chris Yarsevich, MDH, Justin Tetlow, Tim Huneck, Ed Luban, Andy Farry, Dave Burt, Jim South, Rene Clark and Matt Tornianen turned in performances of 11, 13, 16, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 36, and 18 respectively. Oddly enough, these were the exact winning numbers of the Connecticut State Powerball and had Team Director Aaron played accordingly team HURT would now be proud owners of 25 snow cannons that would have provided Crandall Park with perfect skiing conditions from October to June. When notified of this Team Director Aaron replied "mumble mumble #$%^freakin mumble grrrr gambling age mumble grrr bu$$shi%"



On a day that saw mixed reactions from many HURT skiers about their performance nordic reporters found it hard to find too many audible comments...either that or the throngs of cheering middle schoolers drowned out many of the responses.

The highlight performance of the day was the inspired home course performance by Rene Clark who not only came to tangle with an M8 field larger than 1 skier (a rarity) but was urged around by a host of cheers from adoring nordic fans along the trail. We caught up with HURT's aptly named "Mayor of Medicare" after the race.

Q: How did you feel out there today?

RC: I tell ya...it was great to be out there mixing it up with the spry pentagenarians....and the crowds!...amazing....I kept hearing my name......I swear I felt like Norm from Cheers!

(Oddly enough....post interview we did some comparative research and found some very interesting similarities....maybe he is Norm?!?!)



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