2 day recap - ton of fun and the skis performed well enough on this day/course.
The clear and cold weather for the training session was replaced with 40* warmer air and the top of course being in the cloud deck, then snow began falling part way through the 1st race. Perfect setup.
Despite me being in the suit vs big jacket and pants, my watch showed essentially the same top speed for both days, just north of 50. The fresh snow seemed to offset any speed gains?
I did ~ 7 training runs (5 on the shorter course, then 2 on the full length course) then I ended up top 10 overall for both races, and TBH, coming into the event my goals were 1) clean finishes and 2) top half of the field, so I am happy with the results. I skied a very conservative line, which might have been the right line as when my time flashed at the bottom I thought it was wrong given my SG experience, or lack thereof. One of the M1 racers I skied with a bunch this year is generally a few seconds clear of me on a shorter SL or GS course, I was under 1 second off him on the 2nd race. I might toy with this uber-conservative line on my next GS races this coming week, perhaps my crappy line (too aggressive for the 30m skis) is causing me more issues than old age and lack of talent.
They didn't reset for the 2nd race, the field was consistently ~2 seconds slower from the course being chopped up. Oddly, it was predictably beat up; the right footer turns the course had holes right at the gate and in the line from the snow breaking through right at the gate (not the most fun thing to see at ~50mph) while the left footer turns had solid cat-track pattern ice that was not going to break through until May. The training course the day before had the same issue, and given they requested no grooming, it wasn't a big surprise. I somewhat just charged right through the holes and hoped for the best, the skis got thrown around a bit, this is where a longer ski might have helped.
The course started on a decent pitch, a few big turns, then the key section of the course for me was a 3 turn section with a delay in the middle right before the flatter, rolling section. I focused on skiing the pitch smart and building speed for the bottom section. It seemed to work, as I know I made some mistakes on the bottom but felt like I was carrying good speed. Getting a little low, but tried to claw back to the right line in small increments and maintain pace.
I was a little nervous coming into the event not having any clue what to expect, then being one of the few on skis under 200cm didn't instill confidence.
Bring on the West Mountain SG in a month or so! Alas, now I have an expectation.
Side note...the 1st two skiers down one DQ'ed, (though I think he protested and won because i see no DQs on the LiveTiming results?) and the 2nd guy was clearly confused for the final gate and just wiggled the right way (or couldn't get where he wanted to get in time). The gate was offset to the right half of the finish line, but there was a random same color gate on the left side, by the timing light, such that looking at the course, there were 3 gates, and it was not clear (no dye) which was the proper path. I don't understand why they had the gate there as it seemed to do nothing but confuse, eventually it was removed, but not immediately after the 1st two skiers. The last gate of any race course shouldn't be a tester...IMO.
USSS officials are free to correct me. Crude, approximate, and not to scale drawing below.