Hey ADK Gang:

Just a quick note to report on the Park City trip.
Murph, Don, Ted, Bill, Hank and myself just returned from 3 days of training and
the
annual Ice Engineer Race in Park City.

1) A boatload of fun was had by all of us.
2) The Utah Olympic Park track is not only a beautiful very well run track, it
is a lot of
fun to slide on for folks of our ability. It's very fast, yet somewhat easy to
survive. Murph
was clocked in at over 100 kph!
3) Our friends at the Wasatch Luge club were not only extremely welcoming, but
they are
all terrific guys. We are fortunate to be colleagues of such a good bunch of
folks.
4) Jon Owen (USLA's head guy in Park City) was equally welcoming and coached
each of
us. I learned a ton from him, as did everyone in our group. He even gave us 6
ADK guys a
private session on the track Thursday morning. That one session was worth the
price of
the trip alone.
5) The only bummer of the trip was Hank who got banged up on the exit of 13 and
had
to cut out early due to a good-sized bump on his elbow and knee. But Hank
finally
crashed! As Duncan says, "we need to crash to learn to crash."
6) We pretty much got our collective butts whooped by the Park City guys in the
race,
but heck, it's their home track and they have been sliding since mid-November.
We have
some work to do if we hope to keep the Challenge Cup again this year.

Bottom line folks, I HIGHLY encourage each of you to figure out how to get out
to Park City
for Masters in February. You will LOVE it, guaranteed.

See you all soon,

-Brett West