CONGRATS IF YOU QUALIFIED
Qualifications for the NASTAR Nationals closed Monday, President's Day. On Tuesday, the coveted yellow banners were posted on the individual race summaries of those who had made it.
There were so many rec racers logging on to check their results that the NASTAR.com site crashed. It took hours for traffic to ease off enough to allow the site to get back up.
That's not all. The final day to qualify saw a huge surge in the number of people who raced, either trying to improve their handicap or to make it into the top three in their age and gender category and thus get an invite to the Finals.
"We had nearly double the normal number of racers," said a starter at Park City Mountain Resort. Other resorts also saw a large increase in the number of racers who forked over cash to get in a few runs through the gates.
NASTAR is big business, strangely overlooked by most mainstream media, perhaps because it involves ordinary Joe's and Jane's, and few elites. But NASTAR is the largest ski race in the world; ever. Over 100,000 people race the easy, giant slalom style course each year. The Nationals will include 1,400 racers; some serious enough to bring the whole family, a full quiver of skis, and numerous selections of race wax at $150 per ounce. Organizers warn that only the first 1,400 racers to register will be approved, there were many more who actually qualified.
The resort that makes a successful bid for the NASTAR Nationals receives the opportunity to host it for three years; and it's a lucrative deal. Counting family and friends, more than 3,000 people flock to the hosting resort each year; spending nearly two million dollars($2,000,000!) on lodging, meals and lift tickets. That's not counting the indirect profits from the sale of speed suits (nearly all competitors wear them now), ski tuning and ski wax (local shops always sell out of wax and race skis, and actually have to turn away customers who want a race tune because techs have no more time).
This is in the middle of March, towards the end of the season. Yet there has never been a story in the financial sections of a major newspaper, never been network TV coverage of the event. The New York Times finally did an article about NASTAR, but it was in the travel section, not sports.
Congratulations if you qualified for Nationals. The media may not realize what an absolutely enormous and popular event this is. But you do.