Wow - 1 hour to go

And we just heard that we are moving to the fowl weather start due to wind. Coop's 3 person start hut team will be hauling ass to make this happen in 30 minutes. We are live on TV at 11:30am.

I'm my crampon hike down from Ziel radar, what was once hard as concrete is now so soft that I sunk right up to my hip. We have to get this in the bag before this course flows down the hill.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Course Overview for Saturday

I found this great view of the race course. http://www.hahnenkamm.com/cms/en/winners_courses/course_segments_graphics/index.html.
As you hover your mouse around, you can see some arial shots.

Race day - finally

We weren't sure if we were going to get today's race off, but the weather stayed cold enough and the visibility was pretty good. Hopefully, if CBC broadcasts the SG race on Saturday. Watch for our coats (see attached pictures) in both the start hut and the finish line. In fact, just after Jim Karnes took this picture (that is his wife, Chris), one German speaking guy wanted to know where he could buy my jacket. After talking to his english speaking girl friend, he was really disappointed that there were only 10 in existance. He also didn't have the 1000 Euros that Skunk said I could sell it for.

I can't tell you how much fun it is to watch the Canadians race and do well. Robby Dixon started 43rd and finished 6th (http://www.skiracing.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6046&Itemid=2). Robby's run woke us all in in the finish hut as he had the fastest 1st interval. We normally assume that anyone past the 30th started won't break the top 15, but it does happen sometimes.

2 Canucks in the top 10. Great!!

We then toured the village and although there was a crowd, by Kitzbuhel standards, you could shoot a cannon off. The same time tomorrow, it will take you 30 minutes to go 200meters.

Apparently Brian Adams is playing tonight. (Update on this. Coop and Andy went to see Brian Adams, but it was just a parade of celebs --- who knows, Brian could have been there)

The race does have its own web site at: http://www.hahnenkamm.com/

More on the Media guys.....

Nice bunch of guys! l-r Andrew Allen (hill ape), Brian Cooper (head hill ape), Ted Savage (head cheese) and Jim Karnes (chief controller of who gets to race and leave the start gate--ie: makes sure that the right bib number is reported to TV and the rest of the media people, and manages all the speeds, intermediate times and final times).

Since today's training was cancelled due to mild weather (and some very wet snow), we had to head to the start to move the start equipment for the GS start tomorrow. When we got there, we found out that that Media guys have RIPPED off the bracket we use for the radar and it was just plain missing.

We searched for about 20 minutes before we found it. Now, Coop has NOT started his Robertson screw replacement, but it is going to start in earnest on Saturday. There is NO way these guys are going to find the right screw driver to get these out (unless one of them shops at Canadian Tire). This is going to result in them actually bending and breaking their wonderful signs, but who cares......

Having had to work with these guys at Lake Louise, they are just going to be fuming when their departure is delayed and they don't make the bar on time.

As we went to set up the start for the GS, the start posts were already set and the Audi facade was already in place (ie: the media guys had been there). One of the guys from the FIS showed up, stated the start was in the wrong place and left. This meant that that same media guys had to crawl out of the bar, put their wet boots back on and head back up to the start of the race course to do it over. Too bad for them and they actually might have to work for 3 hours this week. Rest assured, this war isn't over.

I'm attaching a video that you can play. It is taken about the Housburg (listen to the music that is piped all over the mountain). The racers pass through the Red Bull gate (you can't see where you are landing, and pick your takeoff by aiming at a landmark like a church) and then have to make a hard right turn just after they land to make the run down the Ziel (Finish) Schuss. We have radar running at this point and on TV you should be able to see them accelerate to almost 140kph. At that point, they hit the Ziel Finish Jump (at 139kph) and coast (yea right), into the finish.

So far that jump has claimed 2 forerunners. One with broken vertebrae and the other with a broken leg. One racer also broke his leg after making a mistake on the jump. As I am standing on the right side (skiers left) of the finish line, I get to watch each racer make this jump and hope that he lives.

No training run tomorrow

Good day today as we got the training in today. The first forerunner was injured on the Finish jump. He must have missed the pre-jump and went straight up and then rotated and landed on his back.

Yesterday, one of the forerunners did the same thing and broke to vertibrae. This is one dangerous hill. Today, there was about 3 crashes and one required an air lift. He broke his tib/fib as he sailed right through a B net and into an A-net.

No training run for tomorrow. The weather for the next few days is just way too mild with little or no cold weather and maybe rain. I imagine that the priority will be to hold the downhill at the risk of not holding the Super G or the Slalom.

One at least one of the accidents, the racer behind was not stopped. Either the jury missed the radio call, or the racer ignored the yellow flag. Since I don't have a jury radio, I was unable to hear the actual radio call.

Last night was a great dinner with the representatives from Rolex and Mikey Huber, the race organizer. Mikey has many stories on the history of the Hanenkam.

Wednesday morning

At this point of my day I'm already on the hill. I've just finished installing the radar for the Finish run. Amazing that the racers can actually stop on where I can hardly sideslip.

I've uploaded some pictures with comments to www.portcredit.net/gallery. Look for Kitzbuhel 2008.

As they say, revenge is sweet. Most of you have heard of our battles with the media guys. I might have mentioned that they plastered advertising all over the start hut which totally put us about 2 hours behind schedule yesterday.

Today, we had to rerun run some cables behind the aluminum walls. This required Cooper to take out about 50 Phillips (starred) screws. Well, he made a slight change when replacing them and he used Robertson screws. You know, the ones you can only get in Canada!!

We can't wait to see them start to take this apart Saturday night (unless there is a Canadian Tire somewhere that they can find a screwdriver), which they start doing about 20 seconds after the last racer has left the gate. Hopefully film at 11.

What happened to Sunday

Simply put, we went out drinking. Very late night. I never got to the update.

So, back to Sunday. Our second day on the hill and this allowed us to spend some time to really get to know the hill. OMG, what a hill. At Lake Louise there are only 3 areas that a little hard to slide slip. Here, at the Hahnenkamm, there are at least 6 areas that I can count that will make you change underwear if you mess up the slide slip that you are doing at about 60kph.

I have yet to do the last 2, and I have a choice to either do them tomorrow (Tuesday) or climb up through the woods for about 200 vertical meters carrying batteries for the radar. If you watch this on this coming Saturday, this will be the 3rd speed into the finish.

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of having lunch in the start building. Lots of history here and lunch we no exception. The start building is built into the side of the hill and has a complete living area attached to it. Joining us for lunch was Dave Pymm and the President of the Kitzbuhel Ski Club. We just lucked out with that lunch.

We spent today getting the rest of the 'eyes' in place and working. As this is the super bowel of ski races, you can just image the amount of advertising in place. It gets in our way everywhere and we have to deal with it. Advertising sells, so timing is expected to work around it. Argh.....

My job was to ensure that the 2 radar devices we are using to measure speed where installed in a good location and working correctly. When I left the start, that one was fine (it will used to measure the fastest to 100kph). When I got back there are 4:30pm (it was getting dark), the radar was no where to be found and the entire area where I had the radar mounted was now covered with Audi advertising. We can't even shoot a radar signal through the advertising, as it is built on an aluminum base.

The 2nd radar was on a part of the hill I just didn't want to slide slip down today. It might have had something to do with the Snow Cat at the bottom of the run. So, I had to climb up to it. By my calculations, it was about the same distance as walking to the top of Craigleith from the bottom (about 250 vertical meters).

In the picture above, you get a view down to the finish from Radar 2.