The biggest competition of the season will take place starting Thursday at Sunday River and will be a great event for spectators. The normal format for World Cup ski racing is tough for spectators – especially with the skiers only visible at certain places along the course and at the finish. The Visa U.S. World Snowboarding Cup will have a Parallel Giant Slalom (PGS) and Snowboardcross (SBX), both exciting and easy to watch and at Sunday River. There will also be a team SBX race pairing two riders on a team.

The Parallel Giant Slalom is similar to the old pro ski format, with skiers racing head-to-head on parallel courses. This event will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. Thursday on the Monday Mourning trail – a run that can be seen in its entirety from the upper deck of Barker Base Lodge. Depending on how things are set up, there should be some good viewing spots near the base of the course along side the trail.

The SBX will take place on a special course being built on Lower Sunday Punch and Rocking Chair. These courses with their banked turns and rolling jumps have to be shaped by snowmakers, groomers and by hand by course workers. The riders start in groups of four on the same course and have to fight for position while negotiating the turns and bumps. A small misjudgment can result in loss of position or a spill, knocking the competitor out of contention.

Part of the low end of the SBX course and the finish should be visible from the upper deck of the base lodge, but the best place to watch will be near where the course swings from Lower Punch onto Rocking Chair. Looking up the trail a lot of the course should be visible, especially the steep pitch at the top of the run. This competition will take place Saturday 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 3 p.m., and will provide us a chance to watch one of our own as the favorite. Farmington’s Seth Wescott, a CVA grad, won the Gold Medal in the 2006 Olympics in this event. On the women’s side, Lindsey Jacobellis from Stratton, Vt., is the dominant racer.

The SBX course will be built according to a design by Jeff Ihaksi, who designed the course for the Torino Olympic debut of the event and will design the course at the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010.

The athletes will be arriving today and tomorrow and training on the mountain Tuesday and Wednesday. There will be a United States Ski & Snowboard Association (USSA) sponsor village, a regular feature at such events. The sponsors, Paul Mitchell, Smartwool, Nature Valley, Xbox, Alka-Seltzer Plus, Sorel, Yahoo!, and the Chris Klug Foundation will be offering samples along with other promotional swag and contests. There will also be opportunities to meet athletes and get autographs throughout the week.

This will be the only U.S. World Cup stop for SBX this season, and this week will be a chance to watch a field of the finest snowboarders from around the world as they train and compete. On Saturday, guests will be able to sign up for a drawing for snowboards, U.S. Snowboard Team Gear and other sponsor products. The drawing will conclude at the Barker Base Lodge at 3:30 p.m. and entrants must be present to win. More information on this event can be found at www.sundayriver.com.

A very busy month

Next weekend will cap a busy month. Last weekend was spent at Sugarloaf where the fund-raiser for the Ski Museum of Maine raised over $5,000 thanks to a list of over 100 donors who gave all products, overnight stays, golf outings and ski packages for the silent and live auctions.

The first week in February was a repeat of countless trips to Stratton Mountain in Vermont. The four-hour drive was easy this year with fair weather on the way over and returning home. More important, the same was true of the ski days, with no precipitation and consistent surface conditions from the first run to the last. I had some company from local ski shops.

The first person I ran into as I headed for the demo tents where every major ski manufacturer had next year’s skis ready for us to try, was Jim Myrick. He was there to check out the new gear that will line the walls of the Skiers Edge ski shop in Auburn. I also ran into Ken and Ron Jacques of the Ski Depot in Jay and got an invitation to join them for dinner in their condo where they had the whole team from the shop. They had a great spread of food and introduced some non Mainers to their own Moose Meat Chili. The guys made the point that what they sell is fun and they know how to have it. Fred and Deb Cowyn were there to identify new products for their Jack Frost shop on the Sunday River access road. I’m sure there were other Maine shops represented, but when 400 to 500 skiers from shops all over the Northeast are testing skis along with a handful from the press, you can’t find everyone.

The odd thing about this annual trip is that I drive 192 miles each way to a mountain that has 92 trails, 2,000 feet of vertical and enough high speed lifts to ski a bunch of them in a day, yet I spend two full days riding a lower mountain lift and ski on only two or three runs. The American Express six pack rises right out of the base area and four low intermediate runs lead right back to the base where all the tents are set up. By taking a single run on each ski, I was able to ski 30 pair of skis in two days. Next Sunday, we’ll have a preview of what’s coming for next year. See you at Sunday River.

Dave Irons is a freelance writer who lives in Westbrook.