A Day in the Life of a NASTAR Pacesetter

An Insider's look at what's involved in running a public race program.

By Pat Moore

NASTAR (National Standard Race) has been in existence since 1968 and is the largest recreational ski and snowboard race program in the world. Hundreds of resorts across the country have set aside terrain to allow the skiing public the opportunity to experience a little of what it's like to run gates.  We're a far cry from Olympians like Steve Nyman, Kaylin Richardson, and Jimmy Cochran but we can have a blast running gates trying to emulate them.

NASTAR venues across the country vary widely from very sophisticated operations to the two-person one-shack approach. Colorado's Beaver Creek is an example of the former.  Our operation at Vermont's Okemo Mountain fits the description of the latter although the racing experience is the same once you're on the course and our participation numbers have grown steadily the last few years.  This is my fifth season as Okemo's NASTAR coordinator/pacesetter and the experience just keeps getting better.

In most cases, duties are shared with John Reavis, former race director of the National Brotherhood of Skiers, and an Okemo NASTAR regular since the 1980s. On the rare occasions when John is unavailable it's a one-man show. I thought I'd jot down what transpired during such a day..

View from Okemo's NASTAR shack on a foggy morning

I got up at 0630, guzzled some black coffee and headed for the mountain, grabbing a radio and stuffing a ham sandwich in my jacket. The Accounting Department wasn't open yet so I made sure I had enough cash to make change. You can't believe how many people only want to make a $2 timed run and pay with a twenty. We even have folks who want to use credit cards. Anyhow, this morning I took a short hop on the B quad from the base and then a skate/herringbone to the half-pipe's T-Bar brought me to our tiny shack. I unlocked the door, fired up the computer, and did a database update. I strung rope across the top of the course to keep people from jumping into it. I grabbed the drill and wrench and set the ski course. I then took the T-Bar back up and got a different wrench to set the snowboard course. The battery in the drill went bad and I got a replacement. I replaced the batteries in one of the electric eyes and aligned both of them. After heading back up the hill I set the pace on each course.

By now it was 10 am and a crowd was gathering. I opened registration and sent racers down the courses while entering first time racers in the database. The electric eye on the ski course gave out (no explanation why) and the loudspeaker in the finish area malfunctioned (I discovered a broken wire later). For a while I had everyone run the snowboard course only (with only one complaint from a guy who wanted to run the other course). When a break in the action finally occurred, I went to the finish line and swapped electric eyes. For some reason, both began working properly. Between starts I practically inhaled the sandwich. Twice during the day, timing was messed up when someone ducked the rope and ran the course tripping the finish line while a racer was still on the course. Whenever the adjacent T-Bar stops (a very regular occurrence), an electrical spike sends a false finish and racers will get erroneous times. They get automatic reruns. Since the loudspeaker was dead, everyone returning to the start wanted me to look up their results. At one point a kind soul offered to help with course maintenance when the panels flipped off the gates. 2 pm finally rolled around and at least a dozen more racers showed up wanting to run the course. I assigned the last one in line the task of stringing the rope across the entrance as soon as he entered the "corral". At this point I checked the results for obvious errors and tried to upload the results. A recurring "socket error" message kept me from doing that. Normally when that happens I copy the race results to my flash memory and upload them from my condo in the evening. I had forgotten my flash memory this weekend but was able to get the system working after a reboot. At that point I took down the ski course. One inside gate had frozen in place and I had to retrieve the drill to extract it. I then repeated the process taking down the snowboard gates and headed back to the shack to prepare a report for Accounting. I took in enough revenue to easily cover costs. I then shut down the computer, locked the shack and headed down the mountain to turn in the day's money and report.

I got back to my condo and took a shower and relaxed with a beer.

Management at Okemo enthusiastically supports the program and has done so since the 1970s.  Jim Remy, the president of the PGA, is a former Okemo NASTAR pacesetter.  Thousands of skiers and boarders have enjoyed racing at Okemo.  Okemo has 100 fun trails of varying difficulty and terrain so it's especially rewarding to hear that a family or ski club based their decision to come to Okemo on the presence of our NASTAR course.  From my standpoint, the benefits of working this job (paycheck, season pass, discount at the snack bar) are nice but not enough of a reason to do the job. What makes it rewarding is helping young aspiring racers achieve a goal - coaching them and then watching them earn their first bronze medal - that makes the job so much fun. I try to make it a point to memorize everyone's name. I want their NASTAR memories to be good ones and I want them to come back again and again. My first exposure to racing was on Okemo's NASTAR course ten years ago and I was immediately hooked.   Other than Mountain Dew, Senior Games, and beer league races, my exposure to the sport is NASTAR. Through this program and my seven trips to the Nationals I've met many wonderful people whom I'm proud to call friends.

Working at a resort NASTAR program is physically taxing work but infinitely rewarding as well. If you ever have the opportunity to take on such a job, jump on it!

Pat Moore has been ranked number 1 nationally in NASTAR snowboard racing in his age group multiple times and holds five national championship titles. In 2008, he became the first NASTAR racer ever to concurrently hold the titles in both snowboarding and skiing. An avid unicyclist, he's not sure what he wants to be when he grows up. Pat runs domestic and international online sales for Suburban Sports in Berlin Connecticut.