Men's Ski Semifinal: Turn 2
The Rahlves Banzai Tour stop #2 went down today. Men’s and women’s ski and snowboarders all charged hard and put on a show for what turned out to be a fairly large number of spectators lining the sides of the course at Alpine Meadows. “Fun”, “sketchy” and/or “gnarly” were some of the preferred adjectives from the competitors when speaking about the course today.
Temperatures were on the rise from yesterday and the track softened up nicely, resulting in a slightly more manageable ride in the mogul field, but larger holes and ruts in the turns on the upper section of the course in Wolverine Bowl.
Men's Snowboard Finals: Turn 1
Banzai’s are always impressive to watch. The speed and aggression that the competitors lay down in undeniably rough conditions requires both the highest levels of fitness and technical ability combined with a bit of a loose screw, no guts no glory mental toughness.
Sending the washboard: Men's ski finals (large crowd on the ridge)
In the photo above you can see John Bochenek and Kyle Smaine straightlining the roughest section of course. Jesse Maddex and Marcus Caston are on the upper portion of the mogul field.
Again, John Bochenek and Kyle Smaine coming in hot during the men’s ski final. Bochenek had the lead and almost pulled it off but a rut hooked his tip in the turn sending him tumbling into the fence. The photographer in the frame had to move pretty fast to get out of the way. I think he missed the shot. I know I did.
That fencing works pretty well though
An impressive crash for sure but he was alright. Another rough go of it was Skier Toby LaMar higher up on the hill. LaMar went off course during a semifinal heat and took a tumble over some rocks. He gave a fist pump during the sled ride and stood up when he got to the bottom. Hope he’s back at it soon.
On the whole the day was filled with fast, clean, and ripping race runs.
Men's ski semifinal heat: Turn 3 | Rahlves chasing with the camera rolling
Men's Snowboard: Turn 4 | Pass in progress
Results:
Men’s Ski:
- Kyle Smaine
- Jesse Maddex
- Marcus Caston
- John Bochenek
- Justin Roach
- Danny Graebel
- Greg Lindsey
- Toby LaMar
Danny Graebel also won the Popchips jump award for throwing 2 backflips and a 360 on course during the men’s small final. He was tailing Roach. Lindsey and LaMar did not ski the small final. Good show and a year supply of chips. Not bad Danny!
Men's ski podium | Drinking the Sierra Nevada
Men’s snowboard:
- Chelone Miller
- Jayson Hale
- Chris Galvin
- Keith Davis
- Sylvan Duclos
- Skye Allsop
- Matt Clark
Men's snowboard podium | Spraying the Sierra Nevada
Women’s Ski:
- Shelly Robertson
- Shannon Rahlves
- Hannah Jermstad
- Kelly Kelleher
- Chantell Heroux
- Sara Scott
Women's ski podium
Women’s Snowboard:
- Casey Lucas
- Carrie Hall
- Marguerite Cossett
- Rosemarie Daiek
Women's snowboard podium
Another awesome Banzai! Next stop Squaw Valley for the KT-22 Banzai! March 3rd-4th
what happened to Palmer?
Palmer was a big disappointment. Said he was in and then he was a no show.
He had the momentum from Kirkwood Banzai almost taking the win at the line behind Sylvain Duclos. I got a call and a few texts from him the day before Alpine and it sounded like he was in. He probably slept in. Too bad! He missed out on the fun and some $$$. http://www.rahlvesbanzai.com/index.php/purse
Damn! Now that’s a Pro call out!
i second that….
No Shit! A real Pro calling out a real Pro. LOL! Nice one Daron
Hey Plake! Palm still has it and I really wanted to see him battle it out. It’s always cool to see a legend like him continue to shine. I mean no disrespect. Just hope to lite his fire and see him in Squaw next weekend for round 3.
Huge respect to John Bochenek!! In my 25 years at Alpine I’ve never seen anybody take the Face quite like that – especially twice in one day! So awesome. Great job Alpine Comp services for pulling off an amazing event with “marginal-at-best” Bonsai conditions! So fun to watch.
A Banzai is a Banzai for a reason!!! You’ve gotta be able to pull that shit off on any conditions. “marginal-at-best” C’MON MAN!!
Did you even check out the conditions on the course? A fair amount of work went into prepping the course for day 2. A large patch of grass just before the first gate needed to be hand filled for a fair start for all competeors. Just after the 2nd gate a ditch had formed during time triles that exposed rock across the majority of the line. A number of other ditches had formed on the top section during the time triles that were filled. The face was loaded with large mogles sporting exposed rock on the down hill side. Netting was place in areas that competitors could stray off course into object/ spectators. All this work was done for competitor safty and to provide a fair race. The race went off really well concedering the conditions. I was happy to see competators put on a good show for all of us.
Nice work Marcus, Shelly and Casey!!!
roach is the man!
Nice work Roach! One of my all time favorite skiers. Way to represent the 35 and over crew.
Congratulations SHELLY you’re the best! Where are the pics of the women on course??? Thanks to all the Shelly fans for the support. Sorry I missed it. I was told the cheers could be heard loud and clear from KT, and the word spread fast of the Shelly win.
How do the top times compare for skis vs snowboards?
Times don’t count for much during the actual heats, it’s just head to head, but the fastest Men’s qualifying time was 1:28.84 and the fastest men’s snowboard qualifying time was 1:55.73. I think boarders have it pretty tough in places on the course. That mogul field for instance.
I didn’t get to watch this race, so I didn’t see the start. But having raced on both skis and snowboards, it’s often an apples/oranges comparison. If the start is really steep, SB times on a race course often come in 10-20% slower than ski. If it is a flat start, or has a long flat in it, all bets are off. On a course like this, even with a steep start, I’d be amazed if SB times came within 20% of ski. Two platforms and two sets of edges make you much more stable on rough terrain and more able to hold an edge through turns. Add in skating at the start/finish and the ability to ride a flat, long base on flats and skis definitely have the overall speed advantage.
The Alpine Meadows Rahlves’ Banzai was our toughest challenge yet for the athletes and it’s getting closer to meeting my personal expectations for quality of an event. If I could have had one more terrain feature it would be a big air. Besides that this course was intimidating and had awesome terrain and rough conditions that were forming throughout the day. One of the highlites was from a few of the fast Men Skiers like John Bochenek and Kyle Smaine using a bump off the 5th gate to pop and float 60′ to tranny into the first banked gully. I saw that as a possibility when laying out the gates and hoped it would be done. Thanks boys! Mother Nature created terrain and I just try to lay out the most fun flowing line taking in consideration the safety of the competitors to test and show off why the ski and snowboard world is bad ass! Stoked on our good crowd too. Thanks for the SUPPORT! …..Next year I’ll have a speed trap at the bottom of the Face. Chet Cook’s qualifying run in the men ski sent figure 11′s down the mogul riddled face from the Red Bull wind blades. That was the biggest balls award if we had one.
That was the most amazing, exciting, and EPIC ski & snowboard racing I have seen in my life!!! True RACING, it doesn’t get any better! Thanks to Daron for putting together an event like this and setting such a rad course. And props to every athlete who even entered that race. It was heavy just watching. I saw Cook’s qualifying run – he literally did not make a single turn down the mogul face and almost pulled it. Bochenek is the man, crushing gates and straightlining all day. Unreal. And congrats to Shelly! It was interesting watching her pull ahead in the bumps then the ski racer gals would start reeling her in through the flats but would run out of time. Great racing! How is Toby LaMar? I got some shaky, phone camera video of his tumble. gnarly. Hope he’s doing ok.
Here’s the Tahoe TV edit http://www.tahoetopia.com/news/rahlves-banzai-delivers-alpine-meadows