How the rest can race the best

Press, 27 May 1981, Page 26

How the rest can race the best

When the Nastar system oi racing for the recreation skier was introduced in the United States nearly twenty years ago, it was hailed by the "New York Times” as the “most original idea in ski-ing since the invention ol the rope tow.”

Transplanted to New Zealand as Coca-Cola NZStar (pronounced Nezstar) this unique system for measuring and comparing ski-ing skills gives ordinary recreational skiers the chance to pit themselves against some of the top professional and amateur ski-racers in New ■Zealand. The NZStar system is comparable to handicap systems used in sports such as golf and croquet in that individual performance is weighed against a single standard. Early in the season at Mount Hutt New Zealand's top racers and instructors will go through pacesetting trials and the fastest skier through a set course provides the standard for every subsequent NZStar entrant, wherever the races are held. It would seem that .the. only way you could compare your ski-ing with the top ski-racer in the country would be to ski the same course on the same day. But that is not necessary with NZStar.

Mount Hutt ski instructors, or other top ski-racers also ski the same course on the same day and are rated how

far they are behind the fastest skier through the course

— a distance that is measured in the "per cent of time slower” than the winner.

Each time a NZStar course is set up at Mount Hutt one of those pacesetters will ski it and establish "a time for the day.” That time is adjusted tc each pacesetter's handicap and becomes the time in which the top skier at the pacesetter trials would have run the course had she or he been there.

But to win a gold, silver or bronze pin. how could any recreational skier hope to better that time? This is how it works:

The Mount Hutt pacesetter for the day of NZStar races sets a course and runs it twice. His fastest time is recorded and adjusted by his handicap, which might be five, which in turn establishes the “par” time for the day. This "par” time is the time the fastest skier at the pacesetting trials would have run the course.

Let's say you are a 25-ycar-old female who runs the course. At the bottom you are told that your time was 25 per cent slower than the "par” time. A terrible run? Not at all. You have just won a silver pin. The handicap chart drawn up to operate NZStar takes your age and sex into account and shows

that for a 25-year-old female to win a silver pin she had to ski the course 21 to 35 per cent slower than the pacesetter. (To win a gold pin you would have had to ski it 0-20 per cent slower — and that's your next target.) NZStar lets you compare yourself with all other skiers in your age and sex group. You may discover that you are a much better skier than you thought you were, or that you will have to do a little more practice to keep up with your peers. Either way you now have an accurate measure of your abilities., and you have done something you thought you might never do: take part in a real ski race!

Coca-Cola NZStar will operate at Mount Hutt on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays through the season under the supervision of John Armstrong, a New Zealander and former racer who runs the race department at Mammoth Mountain in California (and at Mount Hutt). Any recreational skier — men, women, boys, girls from six years up to 60 years of age — is eligible to enter. To keep the NZStar system an accurate measure of the skills of. the ordinary New Zealand recreational skier, any registered New Zealand racer: anyone not conforming to international amateur rules; or any person not domiciled in New Zealand is ineligble to enter for pins and prizes.