RACING
SNOWCHASERS Race Team
The Snowchasers race team is one of the most successful race teams in Open League Racing, a part of the Bay Area Snowsports Council and Far West Ski Association.
At the races and during the ski season new friends are made and old friendships are renewed. The friends you will compete with and then ski or board with are the best part of club racing. Imagine having a lot of friends that ski or board at the same level that you do, and always there to go ski with when the race is over.
Because our club competes with the other Open League clubs within the council, you will need to join Snowchasers in order to race with us. Racers earn individual points as well as points for the team when they compete against other clubs. Of course nothing beats the bragging rights you earn when you beat your buddy on the same course!
We have both skier and snowboarder classes. The classes are divided into skill-levels, age groups, and gender. We have a dozen skill-level based classes for beginners up through elite racers. These classes are then divided into three groups to compete on courses of varying difficulty. There is a novice course, an intermediate, and an advanced course.
New people race as rookies on their first day to establish a beginning handicap and determine where they will be placed. A new handicap is computed for every race that a racer finishes. Racers who improve their handicaps are then bumped up into the next class. Old folks who are slowing down are bumped down so they can still be competitive in their group. This way all racers are competing in a group where they can win on a good day.
If you are not sure you want to jump in with both feet, you can try racing as a “Courtesy Racer” for a small fee. Just go to the registration table and pay them, sign a release and you can race for that day only. This way you can see if this is something you enjoy before committing to the program. The race fee will be applied to your race registration cost if you decide to sign up. The only down-side is that you will not earn points on that day.
The races are held at a variety of Tahoe Resorts, and don’t worry if you don’t have a ski pass, racers can purchase discounted lift tickets! We have sign-in registration at the lodge at 7:45 to 8:30 in the morning of a particular race. Each racer will get one or two runs a day, depending on class and conditions. There are usually a couple hundred of us on a given race day.