NASTAR National Championships
Some 1,200 athletes of all ages qualified for the championships after post-
ing great results on their local NASTAR courses at 100 ski areas throughout
the country. The weekend culminated with the Race of Champions — the fi-
nal event where the fastest racers went head-to-head in parallel giant slalom
format for podium spots.
Snowmass racer Darrell McNabb (in the male 70-to-74-year-old category)
took top honors, finishing first among alpiners in the Race of Champions; he
was followed by Keystone Resort’s Jaan Vehik in second (65-to-69-year-old
men) while Hidden Valley’s Stephen White took third place.
Telemark skiers prevailed among the non-alpine men’s racers with two
Steamboat athletes — Ray Heid (70-to-74) and Tom Degroff (60-to-64) —
finishing first and second, respectively. Sam Landa (9-to-1 0) of Bryce Resort,
Va., took third.
On the women’s side, Park City’s Wina Sturgeon (55-to- 59) finished on top,
followed by Sun Valley’s Kim Hovren (50-to- 54) and Abigail Murer (11-to-
12) from Hidden Valley rounding out the top three.
Among non-alpine women, Copper Mountain’s Peggy Martin (45-to- 49)
was first, followed by snowboarder Lexis Corbin of Ohio’s Mad River (15-to-
16) and Karolina Zawodnik (30-to- 34) of Hunter Mountain in New York.
Serving as pacesetters were World Cup racers Kaylin Richardson, Jimmy
Cochran and Steven Nyman along with ski racing icons Phil Mahre, AJ Kitt,
Heidi Voelker and Doug Lewis.
They spent the weekend pacesetting one course after another — about 12
runs per day — and Nyman put down the fastest times during the Race of
Racers Samantha and Alexander Edwards enjoy a little down time
with pacesetter Jimmy Cochran.
Australia’s Phoebe Heaydon, 4, glides past the second gate on her
way to a silver medal in the female 1-4 platinum division.
