FARMINGTON — A large crowd of people of all ages enjoyed a nearly 40-degree afternoon under a bluebird sky at Titcomb Mountain ski area Saturday.

Many took in the always wacky and fun Dummy Downhill!, an event that judges homemade dummies on skis for Originality or Most Creative, Best Workmanship, Fastest Time, Longest Distance, Most Spectacular Crash and Overall Winner awards.

Prize money from combining the $5 entry fees and dividing that total by the number of entrants is what the winning contestants won in cash prizes.

“It’s always just lots of fun and it involves all the families,” said Megan Roberts, Titcomb’s manager.

Racing venues were a downhill course between two buildings at the bottom judged for distance, fastest time and most spectacular crash, and a downhill course with a huge jump at the base that was judged for distance and most spectacular crash.

“Not surprisingly, there is a large pile of debris” in the jump landing-zone, entrant Rolfe Barron of New Portland said.

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“Fearless 58,” a giant Mount Blue football helmet on skis made by father and son, Peter and Anthony Franchetti, won the Fastest Time, Longest Distance and Overall Winner awards. However, it didn’t even reach the jump, instead crashing into a lane wall halfway down the course.

“I’ve got enough to feed my family now,” Peter Franchetti, the Mount Blue High School football coach, quipped after picking up their winnings from Roberts.

Prior to the races in the judging arena, Peter Franchetti said the helmet was modeled after his son Anthony’s No. 58 football helmet. Anthony, who was the team’s senior captain, said the skis used to be his racing skis until he broke them in a race.

“That’s about all they’re good for is launching them off a jump, so we’ll see,” Anthony Franchetti said.

“When he was in fifth grade, we said, ‘We’ve got to do this,'” Peter Franchetti said. But they didn’t, “until he was a senior in high school, so it’s do or die now. It’s our last shot, so we did it.”

It took them two nights to build Fearless 58. “The hardest part was trying to drill through once-really-expensive-but-now-broken skis,” Anthony Franchetti said.

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Barron’s “Spring Skiing Skinny Sam Slurp ‘n’ Slide” entry was a wooden construct wearing a tropical print shirt and black pants while holding a cocktail glass up high in one hand. It won the Jump — Spectacular Crash award after catching big air.

He built it using the wooden sled he uses to haul logs at home and used lumber to create the skier. He added a 75-pound cinder block to the base to keep the weight low for better balance.

“It’s designed such that it will survive the downhill, but in all likelihood, it will not survive the jump, which is part of the fun,” Barron said. “But I’ll take it home and salvage the screws that I can and the wood will become kindling.”

Ten-year-old Sam Goodspeed of Wilton built the Teddy Bear Tank after his first two entries in the past two years were demolished by the jump. For Saturday’s competition, he made adjustments.

“We made it lighter,” he said. “That way we can carry it up the mountain a lot easier. Last year we won Best Jump, because it was right on the (maximum) weight limit, so it went high. We put a parachute on the teddy bear this year hoping that when it goes off the jump the parachute will deploy and protect him.”

However, on the downhill course, much to Goodspeed’s dismay, the Teddy Bear Tank veered off the path and slammed into a small building with enough force to blow the wooden tank into several pieces.

Undeterred, Goodspeed and adult helpers improvised and quickly nailed and screwed the pieces back together in time for the jump event. The tank sped down the hill and launched off the jump so far it won the Jump — Distance award, but still blew apart in a hard landing.

tkarkos@sunmediagroup.net


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