1. NASTAR is an acronym for NAtional STAndard Race.
2. The founder of NASTAR was John Fry, the editor-in-chief of SKI Magazine during the 1960s.
3. It was the lack of competition that prompted John Fry to embark on his quest to establish a program for recreational skiers with a national standard, specifically that ski schools concentrated on teaching “style” with no definite scoring system to measure a student’s progress or a skier’s general proficiency; there was no organized national competition for the recreational skier when research indicated they made up 95% of the skiing population, and certain areas refused even to allow the setting of gates for race practice, something Fry called “a policy that surpasses imbecility”.
4. NASTAR was modeled on the French Chamois Races, an event which brought all French ski instructors together at one site for a competition to rate them on a racing proficiency scale. The teachers raced and were given a mathematical rating expressed as a percentage that their time lagged behind the time recorded by the fastest skier. The main difference with NASTAR however, is that the Chamois races were designed for expert skiers only, with tough, intricate slaloms on steep, challenging terrain. NASTAR courses are open-gate giant slalom races on intermediate slopes.
5. Each Resort has its own “Pacesetter”. At the beginning of each season, top racers and instructors nationwide would come together to rate their performance against the best U.S racer of the time. Then they would return to their home resorts as pacesetters. The times recorded by these local pacesetters, adjusted by the amount of their percentage ratings, would create a national standard. And that standard could be used to compare the performances of recreational racers throughout the country.
6. Jimmie Heuga, an American hero since winning a bronze medal in slalom at the 1964 Olympics, signed on as the first national pacesetter. Heuga was named to the U.S. Ski Team in 1958, becoming the youngest man ever to make the squad as a 15-year-old. Heuga actually died last month, on February 8, 2010, at Boulder Community Hospital in Boulder due to complications that stemmed from multiple sclerosis, something he was diagnosed with in 1970.
7. The first sponsor of the 1968-69 NASTAR season was Joseph Schiltz Brewing Company. The current sponsor for the 2009-10 season is Nature Valley.
8. 2,297 skiers racing at 8 ski areas took part in the inaugural season. Those ski areas were: Alpental, WA; Boyne Country, MI; Heavenly Valley, CA; Mt. Snow, VT; Mt. Telemark, WI; Song Mountain, NY; Vail, CO; and Waterville, NH.
9. Each NASTAR course is essentially a modified Giant Slalom course with anywhere from 12 to 20 gates.
10. Each Resort is encouraged to standardize its course(s) to have a par time of 23 seconds and set courses so that no course is within 5% of the “cap time” (the time it takes the local pacesetter to tuck from the start to the finish of their course without going around gates and is the fastest possible time down the venue).
11. If you are one of the top three racers in your division at your ski hill, you automatically get an invite to the NASTAR National Championships. Racing competition is held over a 3-day period. On days 1 & 2, competitors run the course twice each day. This determines the gender age division champions. The first place winners of each division then race against each other in the handicapped Race of Champions to determine the Overall National Champion.
12. Since the program’s inception 42 years ago, more than 6 million racer days have been recorded by NASTAR.
13. In the 2008-09 season, 220,885 NASTAR racer days were recorded and a record 553,808 starts. Currently, there are over 86,000 overall racers, including in excess of 28,000 youth racers.
14. It is expected there will be 1,500 competitors and over 5,000 incremental visitors at the NASTAR Championships held at Winter Park Resort, Colorado between March 25^th and March 28^th, 2010.
15. Vacations Inc, the longest established rental management company in Winter Park, Colorado, is offering special NASTAR lodging deals and discounts to anyone who will be in town during the competition, with savings up to 30% on your choice of condo, cabin, townhome or private home.

Well, the 2010 Winter Olympics have come and gone, and the big question on everyone’s lips is, “Who won?” Perhaps the question should be re-phrased as, “Which country was the most successful?” At the end of the day, does that really matter, when taken in the context of the true Olympic spirit, coined by the founder of the International Olympic Committee Pierre de Coubertin, who stated “The important thing is not to win, but to take part.”

Before the Games, I started to think about what might end up as the biggest headline, or most newsworthy event of the Games. Would it be Lindsay Vonn’s shin, Great Britain’s chances of even getting a medal (which they did, and a gold at that in the women’s skeleton) or record-breaking viewing figures for the curling? There – I’ve gone and broken my New Year resolution to take curling seriously this year.

As it turns out, perhaps the biggest headline from the games will be the tragic death of the Georgian athlete who crashed during a training run in the Luge event before the Olympics opened.

A potentially momentous event that at one time threatened to supersede all these wasn’t even a sporting story at all, but had to do with the potential sale of the Whistler ski area, the site of the Alpine events at the Winter Games, slap bang in the middle of the competition!

It’s important to provide some background in order to understand how and why this all was coming to a head. Back in the giddy days of 2006, Fortress Investment Group, a private equity firm and hedge fund, purchased Intrawest in a leveraged buyout for $2.8 billion. The premise behind the deal was that condo sales slope-side would provide the funds to repay the $1.7 billion in debt that was taken on to finance the investment.

“If only we knew then what we know now”, so the saying goes. Good old hindsight. The state of the global economy in 2010 is in stark contrast to what it was at the time of the buyout. Property prices have plummeted, the resort industry has been struggling, and institutions are having a tough time raising money in restricted credit markets to meet loan commitments. This is exactly what has happened to Intrawest.

Back on October 23^rd of 2009, Intrawest Holdings missed a $524 million installment on their loan, and although a 60-day extension was achieved, it was still unable to come up with the funds on time. The composition of Fortress’ creditors provides an ironic twist. In addition to JP Morgan and David Kempner, Lehman Brothers – which collapsed in September 2008 and was “allowed” to fall into bankruptcy – is purportedly Fortress’ major creditor, and is motivated to recover as much money as it can as it unwinds its own financial obligations.

Without sufficient cash to repay debt, in the face of creditor pressure it seems Intrawest has had to resort to selling assets. As far as actual sales are concerned, in November of 2009, Intrawest sold its Copper mountain ski resort to Powdr (a company based in Salt Lake City and which itself owns eight other ski resorts) for an “undisclosed sum” (although speculation has it that it was worth about $100 million). Then, on January 28^th 2010, Intrawest announced it was selling its Panorama Mountain Village ski resort in British Columbia to local homeowners and businesses. Less than a week later, Intrawest sold all of its real estate holdings at Squaw Valley ski resort in California to Squaw Valley USA, which already owns on-mountain operations at Lake Tahoe ski resort in Olympic Valley, California: again, the amount was not disclosed. Following this up, on February 9, 2010, Intrawest announced it was selling is interests in Florida’s Sandestin Golf & Beach Resort to the Florida-based Becnel family, the real estate of which includes cottages, homes, condos and hotel properties, as well as a marina, shops and restaurants.

The big news in the middle of this however was tied to Intrawest’s press release on Janaury 20, 2010, which merely stated:   “There have been inaccurate and misleading media reports surrounding Intrawest today. Fortress Investment Group continues to own and control Intrawest and all of its properties. Serious discussions with Intrawest’s lenders are ongoing regarding refinancing and the Company continues to operate “business as usual” at all of its resort properties. Intrawest is looking forward to the success of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games”.

The release came after ads appeared in major newspapers on January 19^th announcing that lenders represented by Wilmington Trust FSB would hold a public auction to sell their interest in the company. That auction was scheduled to take place on February 19^th, and included was Intrawest’s jewel-in-the-crown property, Whistler-Blackcomb.

There has been much speculation (read “suspicions about motives”) as to why the auction was scheduled for the middle of the Olympics. Daniel Fannon, a hedge fund analyst at Jefferies & Co. called it a “marketing tool”, aimed at fetching the best price for Whistler while the world’s attention is fixed on the games. Pretty smart in my view. Others have deemed it a pressure tactic. Will Marks of JMP Securities suggests it was merely a threat to achieve affirmative action by Intrawest.  One realtor called it “irresponsible”. Whatever the angle, there is a widely held view that the lenders had grown impatient with the unwillingness of Intrawest and Fortress to face the tough decisions that had to be made.

While a hurdle for potential investors was the short time frame between the announcement and the scheduled auction date (which would mean raising capital at short notice a challenge), there was much talk of Vail Resorts being in the running to take over the debt and eventually gain control of Whistler. Although potentially valued at $250 million, in this day and age, finding any buyer might prove difficult. Kai Li, a professor of finance at the University of British Columbia said “Given the current economic condition, auction of assets at a fire sale price does not bode any good. So the likelihood of an auction is extremely low due to lack of buyers and bad prices for the lenders”. Barnett, the newspaper publisher, noted “There are a lot of things that look more promising than the ski and recreational real estate businesses that have been built around aging North American baby boomers. And the buyer(s) need to decide if they are in the resort operation business or the real estate development business, something investors could never really figure out about Intrawest”.

An alternative to the auction was that Intrawest could file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. This strategy would protect Intrawest from creditors and buy some time by allow it to continue to do business as control passes to a trustee.

Intrawest and Fortress have been pretty non-committal in response to requests for comment. “Calls to Fortress went unanswered” or “Executives at Intrawest and Fortress could not be reached” were common among many reports. However, Ian Galbraith, Spokesman for Intrawest did mention that “serious discussions with Intrawest’s lenders are ongoing regarding refinancing”. Even the CEO of Fortress, Dan Mudd, was on CNBC and commented that they wanted to manage their way through the crisis and realize the full value of the investment.

As it turned out, the auction was postponed for a week, but still scheduled to occur right before the end of the games, and then there was another delay until March 1^st. That was yesterday. At the time of writing, there are reports that a deal has been reached which includes the injection of more equity into the company. As reported by Bloomberg News, and according to “a person with knowledge of the talks”, after a $150 million additional equity injection by Fortress (or its funds), Intrawest’s remaining $1.2 million of debt would be divided into a senior tranche of $800 million, on which it would pay 10% interest, and a mezzanine tranche of $400 million on which it could pay as much as 17%, and which may depend on payment terms. According to The Wall Street journal, with the new loans, the debt’s maturity has been extended by as much as four years. April 16 has supposedly been set as a deadline to complete negotiations.

So there you have it – just waiting for confirmation! An interesting but not unfamiliar history lesson. Continue to buy up real estate as part of the housing bubble with large amounts of debt, bubble bursts, prices go down, sales screech to a halt, cash evaporates, loan notes become due and unpaid, creditors threaten, assets (reluctantly) sold off to reduce debt and with credit tight remaining debt re-financed at terms very much in favor of the lender. What – the banks win again? Bet someone makes off with a nice bonus!

Continuing my monthly review of the top restaurants in the valley, this month my wife and I chose The Tabernash Tavern. For those unfamiliar with the valley, this restaurant is “Located in beautiful lower downtown Tabernash”, and I can attest that indeed it is located in Tabernash! (6 miles outside of Winter Park). I’m not so sure about the rest of the location details obviously written tongue-in-cheek, but if great food and a cozy ambience are what you’re looking for, The Tavern is a real treat.

The reputation is borne of the Head Chef, Al Sapien, who formerly ran the Ranch House Restaurant at Devils Thumb, The Shed and then the Untamed Steakhouse in Winter Park, and has established such a following that it’s kind of like a “if you open it, they will come” scenario. Well, it opened in June 2008 and I noticed that the Tavern has a Facebook page with 623 fans! That’s quite a fan base.

It’s definitely advisable to make a reservation ahead of time. In so doing, we were taken straight to our table in the main (front) part of the restaurant which is the place to be. With dark-stained wooden (cedar I think) walls, cathedral ceiling and spot lighting, the dining area has a very warm feel to it, and all around is an eclectic mix of old cooking utensils, skis, sleds, tankards, cans, posters and other items no doubt collected over the years.

Al’s menu often changes, so don’t necessarily rely on what’s in the Menu Guide, or the telephone book if you’re into advanced menu selections. What he does however (which also applies to the wine list) is to present a variety of International choices, drawn from past experience and travels abroad.  After Thai curry mussels for appetizer, which were sublime, we had the Steak Mazatlan – very tasty and very filling by the way– and the Paella which was absolutely outstanding. A bottle of Benton-Lane Oregon Pinot Noir was the perfect accompaniment and it was somewhat disappointing we didn’t have room for dessert as the choices were more than tempting. Perhaps we’ll just go for beer, apps and a dessert next time.

All in all, a very nice evening out. Al has recently opened an Italian restaurant in Winter Park – called Aleberto’s for some reason – which is where I think we’re heading next month.

Verdict: highly recommended.

Bonnier Mountain Group and Winter Park Resort are teaming up to hold 2010’s upcoming Nature Valley NASTAR Championships.  This year, over 1,300 racers are expected to compete in a variety of events over a three day period.  Throughout NASTAR’s 42 years the event has been hosted by many different resorts, spending the last four years at Steamboat.

NASTAR, which stands for National STAndard Race Program, is the world’s largest recreational ski & snowboard race program, and allows racers of all ages & abilities, through a handicap system, a way to compare themselves with one another and with the national champion, regardless of when and where they race.

Competitors ranging in age from 3 to 90 have qualified for the 2010 National Championships by earning a top-three ranking in their age division at one of North America’s 120+ Nature Valley NASTAR ski resorts.  Racers from the United States, Canada, Australia, Chile, and England will be competing for a variety of titles in Winter Park this year.  Racers compete within age and gender categories within their division and discipline.  Disciplines include Alpine and Telemark skiing, Snowboarding, as well as Physically Challenged categories.

Both Winter Park Resort and the town of Winter Park are thrilled to have the privilege of hosting the event concurrently with the resort’s 70 year anniversary.  President and Chief Operating Officer of Winter Park Resort, Gary DeFrange states that “Winter Park Resort is extremely excited and proud to be partnering with NASTAR to host the National Championships this March.  With so many people anticipated to attend this year’s event, winter sport enthusiasts will enjoy Winter Park Resort’s tremendous value coupled with our close proximity to Denver.”

Vacations Inc in Winter Park is offering some of the best lodging deals for competitors, families and friends, and literally anyone who happens to be in town for the duration of the championships. Brian Lence, President of Vacations Inc says, “Vacations Inc has developed a solid history of catering to the specific needs of visiting athletes, coaches, families and friends coming to Winter Park for organized competition, and we are thrilled to be given the opportunity of playing our part once more. With up to 5,000 incremental visitors expected for the Championships, Vacations Inc is offering some fantastic specials exclusively for visitors to the Resort during this time. ”

For you skiers and snowboarders, there are only a few days left to qualify!  Get your qualifying runs in by February 15th, and be sure to register for the Championships by March 17th to be eligible!

Vacations Inc is the longest established rental management company in Winter Park, Colorado having provided private vacation rentals in the Winter Park & Fraser Valley for over 37 years.

In line with my objective to have a meal out at least once a month, I thought it a good idea to act as restaurant critic at the same time and give a review of my dining experience. This week, I went to Bistro 28, which is the restaurant out at Pole Creek Golf Course, to partake in their “Burger Night”.

Accompanied by by wife and daughter, we arrived a little after 5PM, thereby qualifying for the “Kids 10 and under eat free” offer. My daughter had her usual Mac ‘N Cheese, and my wife and I ordered the homemade burger, fries and beer or wine special for $7.95 each. Hell of a deal! The food was great, the clubhouse is brand new, and considering that (of course) the golf course is closed in winter, the restaurant was buzzing! Locals have quickly discovered that Bistro 28 is a great restauarant to go to and escape the downtown Winter Park crowds. Inevitably, because our meal was such a good deal, we drank a couple more glasses of wine just to run the bill up, and because it’s so nice to go our for a treat.

They recommend making a reservation, and I can believe that because tables for a total of 36 settings were reserved when we walked in!

So there you have it. Go to www.polecreekgolf.com for directions and more information.