SWIRL is RACE READY!

“Swirl is Race Ready”

Terrific words uttered from Chuck Hughes, the KSC/KMS Development Program Director and Director of Events. Chuck also happens to be the Chief of Race for the Audi FIS Women’s World Cup at Killington so the man knows how to get a racecourse ready.

Swirl is a project that was announced on March 1st 2018. Head of School Tao Smith described Swirl as an ideal training surface to help take KMS to new levels and it created a permanent stand-alone training venue with a dedicated surface lift and improved snowmaking

Killington Resort put a tremendous amount of work during the summer of 2018 moving the surface lift from Bunny Buster to skiers left of Swirl. The resort also widened the trail and the KMS and KSC/KMS programs made great use of the trail last winter.

This summer a dedicated group of people has been hard at work to get the necessary things in place to be able to have races on the course.

Today, Chuck Hughes announced that the Swirl Timing project is complete, we now have timing from top to bottom on Swirl.

The project included installing a timing system that has a 24 pair timing wire buried in conduit that stretches the distance of Swirl from top to bottom. The timing wire is connected to 5 timing boxes mounted on 4X4 posts that are 6ft tall located a short distance off the side of the trail, starting on skiers right and then moving to skiers left of Swirl. The boxes are the plugins for the start, finish, and 3 spots along the trail. The Swirl Trail is Homologated for both Men’s and Women’s FIS SL as well as all levels of USSS SL racing. It is also Homologated for U10 - U14 GS.

Thank you to Killington Pico Ski Resort Partners and all the support the mountain and its staff have given us to make Swirl a world-class venue.

Thank you Killington Ski Club Membership and KSC BOD, and President Mike Castellini for all the support, and financing the timing project on Swirl.

Thank you to the Killington World Cup Foundation for the grant support.

Thank you, Bryan Hopkins, for all your work in getting us all set up with materials needed to complete this project.

Big Thanks to Tyler Smith for leading this project, Thank you, Kip Blake, for being the guy that tied it all together, and Thank you to Brad and Jay for all the site work on Swirl. Thank you KMS Coaches, Craig, Kip and Pete for helping pull wire.

Thank you, everyone, for a big team collaboration for getting this project completed.