I'm out here in Park City with Don Simkin and Brett West for the Utah
Winter Games. I wanted to share a few coments and observations about
the Park Cith Experience.

Firts of all, the track facilities are truely awesome. Not only in
terms of scoring towers, scoreboards, and buildings, but in terms of
safety.

The track is covered top-to-bottom with cameras, including remote
operated cameras on the tops of the light towers that can pan and zoom
to see nearly any part of the facility.

When the lower starts aren't in use, there are barriers that are
placed in the in-run to close them off, limiting the wall exposure
that comes if you were to ping into the ramp merge, as well as keep
stray thing from coming into the track.

John Owen's program out here is also very impressive. He's building
his own sleds for the Western Devo team. This program has kids on the
ice Tuesday through Sunday most of the season. The all show up at
3:00 after school, and slide until 5:30. These kids, aged 10-16, are
all sliding from Olympic womens or Olympic Men's starts. They
typically get in 5 runs a day.

During the session, the operations staff in the tower efficiently has
sliders running from 3 starts (Juniors, Womens, and Mens) all in the
same session.

The track itself is... in a word, fast.

But it's also smooth. And in a way, forgiving. There's enough time
between the turns, even at the higher speeds, to make a correction if
one is needed. It also appears to be a few inches wider as well.

The profile of the corners seems more rounded. with a cleaner
transition from the flat to the belly of the corners.

All in all, it's an amazing place.