{"id":2453348,"date":"2020-01-16T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T05:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/speed-racing-returns-to-aspen-highlands-with-annual-wilder-dwight-memorial-classic-ski-race\/"},"modified":"2020-01-16T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T05:56:00","slug":"speed-racing-returns-to-aspen-highlands-with-annual-wilder-dwight-memorial-classic-ski-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/speed-racing-returns-to-aspen-highlands-with-annual-wilder-dwight-memorial-classic-ski-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Speed racing returns to Aspen Highlands with annual Wilder Dwight Memorial Classic Ski Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Stapleton Training Center at Aspen Highlands is hosting speed races this week with the annual Wilder Dwight Memorial Classic Ski Race.<\/strong>
Austin Colbert\/The Apsen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Johno McBride believes the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club has the potential to produce elite speed skiers at a higher rate than maybe any other club in the country. This isn\u2019t him bragging about having better coaches or better athletes, but simply better opportunities to train and race in downhill and super-G.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there aren\u2019t people who are passionate about speed and understand speed, it will disappear, and that\u2019s what is happening in a lot of clubs,\u201d said McBride, who runs AVSC\u2019s alpine program. \u201cWe have the ability in this club to really train kids up to be good speed skiers. There is no reason in my mind we can\u2019t develop kids out of this program and put them on the national team to be speed skiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

McBride would know. He spent years coaching with the U.S. ski team and helped guide American legend Bode Miller to a couple of overall World Cup titles. He was with the U.S. as its main speed coach the past few seasons, including through the 2018 Winter Olympics, before returning to his roots in Aspen.<\/p>\n

What the club has that others don\u2019t is Aspen Highlands and the Stapleton Training Center, which is hosting the annual Wilder Dwight Memorial Speed Series this week. The races include both downhill and super-G for FIS and USSA athletes alike, one of the few opportunities athletes below the national team get to compete in speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are one of a few. Not that many do it anymore,\u201d McBride said. \u201cPrimarily nobody wants to take on the liability. And the other piece of the puzzle is the reality is it\u2019s a lot of work to put on a speed series. If you look up the hill and see the amount of protection \u2014 there are 250 nets up there that we all have to put in the snow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stapleton Training Center at Highlands opened in 2014 and has been a game changer for the club. While the terrain is technically that of Aspen Skiing Co., the race venue is managed by AVSC and its staff. It\u2019s quickly become a highly sought after spot for training and has hosted the world\u2019s best in recent years, including Mikaela Shiffrin, Lindsey Vonn and the Norwegian national team.<\/p>\n

This week, it\u2019s all about the younger athletes and allowing them a chance to experience the thrill of a downhill ski race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the greatest assets we have in this club right now, is we have a venue we can manage the way we want,\u201d McBride said. \u201cWe are really lucky that the ski company is giving us enough width to really set that however we see fit, which makes it not only safe \u2014 it keeps us away from the woods \u2014 but it keeps us from setting up wall-to-wall protection along the whole mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The annual race series has been going on for more than three decades. It\u2019s named after Wilder Dwight, promising young Aspen ski racer who died in a tragic skiing accident in 1986. It\u2019s become one of the most popular and well-attended alpine events AVSC hosts each year.<\/p>\n

The first of two days of downhill races was held Thursday, with a trio of AVSC athletes sweeping the men\u2019s downhill podium in the FIS race. Tanner Perkins, Kristopher Westman and Wyatt Palmer finished 1-2-3, respectively, while Elle Murphy, another AVSC product, was third in the FIS women\u2019s downhill.<\/p>\n

A second day of downhill racing is scheduled for Friday, weather permitting. With snow in the forecast, those races could be moved to Saturday, which otherwise is intended to be a training day for super-G. The super-G races are scheduled for Sunday and Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be a lot more speed opportunities \u2026 taking that out of the developmental piece because potentially it\u2019s dangerous is a bummer. It\u2019s like any sport that has danger \u2014 there is a progression and there is a way to learn,\u201d McBride said. \u201cMore importantly, there are a lot of kids out there having a really good time and learning and excited about it, and to me that\u2019s really what this event is about. It\u2019s keeping kids interested in speed and wanting to do it and learning, because it\u2019s pretty exhilarating. It\u2019s a lot different than skiing down a slalom course.\u201d<\/p>\n

The venue will be front and center on the national stage later this spring when it hosts the U.S. Alpine Tech Championships in late March.<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stapleton Training Center at Aspen Highlands is hosting speed races this week with the annual Wilder Dwight Memorial Classic Ski Race.Austin Colbert\/The Apsen Times Johno McBride believes the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club has the potential to produce elite speed skiers at a higher rate than maybe any other club in the country. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 20:32:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}