IGSA WLAC World Cup Races?

[Scott Peer]

I've been chatting with Marcus about the 2004 season. He's interested in adding world cup races to the WLAC regional races. These might take place at the world cup street luge races. For example, there was a slalom demo race last year in Austria at Hot Heels in the evening. I think another good candidate might be the 2004 California world cup race (location and date TBD, but it could be Barrett Junction in the fall again).

Another idea is to have IGSA sanction races being organized by others, or to have a WLAC race have an elevated status (more points in the standings).

In any case, for 2 years now we've had just regional races at WLAC, and perhaps it's time to put additional emphasis on one or more particular races.

Please comment, I'd like to hear any new ideas, or positives or negatives about the suggestions above.

[Vlad Popov]

Paris Slalom World Cup included inline slalom last year and most likely will include it this year. Or maybe it included skateboard slalom, since riderz.net is more inline oriented.

[Hans Koraeus]

It was a huge mistake last year trying to include inlines into the Paris World Cup Slalom event. Hopefully this will not be the case this year. The Paris World Cup should be a skateboarding happening, nothing else.

I.e. time to change your avatar, Vlad.

[Rene Carrasco]

Scott -

...the idea of having an elevated points race at WLAC is a good idea...
-Why not ?

- thanks for all these years of racing there..........

.................-Rene' C.

[Scott Peer]

At WLAC we've found that inlines worked fine in the GS, but tight slalom was not popular for inline, so we've only done a few runs of inline tight slalom.

I'm interested in what made inlines a "huge mistake" in Paris. More specifics would be good to help us avoid repeating their mistake, since we do tend to try to make things multi-discipline in general (for example, the WLAC finale included skateboard, street luge, buttboard, inline, and gravity bikes!).

Thanks,

Scott

[Jani Soderhall]

From what I recall, there were a few problems sharing the event last year:

- Who had access to the micro (as there was only one)?
- Who had the fence (last year we couldn't obtain the fences we were promised, so there was a severe lack of them, ie not enough for both groups).
- When the inline started the skateboarders helped get it fenced off and decorated. When the inline event was finished, the inline skaters were gone and it was left to the skateboarders to take care of what was left over (ie everything).
- When the inline skaters were to share our course on the slope they argued that we were running late and they wanted to get started. (There's always a risk for that, but it's more boring for those who are waiting if they are not part of what is running late).

We'll share the race this year too, as it makes sense in making the event bigger and more impressive for spectators, but we have decided to separate the two sports as much as we can. No roller skaters in the slalom course and no skateboarders in the inline courses.

Another thing which contributed to the differences is that the inline skaters that did take part in the event were those who are interested in the recent sport "figure/acrobatic etc slalom" rather than fast racing. This type of inline slalom is done on flat, with extremely short conedistances and a very short course. That probably added to us all feeling different to the other camp.

In general there were no real disputes or anything. But skateboard slalom is skateboard slalom and the best is when we can do our own thing.

/Jani

[Vlad Popov]

Oops!..

Is there going to be speed (downhill) slalom for inliners?

As a separate event?

On a separate course?

__________________
Sorry if this is in the wrong place.

[Scott Peer]

We've always had just timed downhill runs at WLAC. No style contests or flat events (at least yet).

The tight slalom has been skateboard only, although if there was interest in it from inliners I presume we would go ahead and add that. We've always managed to get everyone's runs in, and in a way it's nice when there is a small field because everyone can get more runs. I think that tight slalom will be set by a skateboarder, even if inliners are also racing.

The GS/fast slalom courses are on a 10% grade, with the courses usually around 22 seconds for the fastest time (speeds over 20mph). Inline and shortboard and longboard all run the same course (maybe one time we opened up a couple cones for longboard). I've set most of those courses in a pretty fast and open style, but we do take turns setting, and sometimes a skateboarder will set a more challenging course or add more stingers.