NASTAR Championships in Snowmass

Are you a speed demon on a snowboard? Then get ready for the NASTAR national championships, which will be held on March 20-24 at Snowmass, Colorado. Snowmass, one of the largest ski areas in terms of acreage, has something for everyone, especially intermediate skiers and riders. It’s also a short drive or bus ride to Aspen.

It may be easier for you to participate than you think. Here’s a description from the NASTAR website: “NASTAR racers must earn a top ten National Ranking or a top five State Ranking. Participants can also qualify by earning a top five Resort Ranking in their age and ability category by February 18, 2013.

That is, NASTAR divides the downhill population into a lot of difficult categories. There’s men and women, for starters. Then everyone is broken out into five-year age brackets. Telemark skiers and snowboarders are teach treated separately from people on “alpine” skis. There are even categories for people with different sorts of disabilities.

So, for example, you’ve got to be in the top 5 female snowboarders in the 40-44 age bracket at any particular result. Depending on where you are, that’s not a difficult feat. I should know. I have qualified for the national event for two years now, as a snowboarder, among men my age. How? I finished second at a local resort. Impressive? Not necessarily. I was second out of two.

You’ll find a similar situation at many other resorts. I pulled up the snowboard rankings for men ages 40-44 at a number of resorts. Some were destination areas, while others you might drive to as part of a beer league. There were 20 individuals who raced at Breckenridge and Vail, and 18 at Park City. But being a high-volume resort doesn’t necessarily translate into a lot of racers. There were ZERO snowboarding racers at Mammoth and ZERO at Aspen Highlands.

As they way, your mileage returns and past performance does not predict future results.