Sugarloaf Schuss –
Twenty Years Old 1972
(Editor’s note: this story is taken from the Vol. 4, #15, April 1972 issue of the Sugarloaf Irregular and is reprinted here in its entirety. ©The Original Irregular)
 |
|
Gary Vaughn being presented the Sugarloaf Schuss trophy from Ski Club President Scott Scully. (Undated)
|
|
As near as can be figured, the Sugarloaf Schuss began somewhere in a fog in 1951. The temperatures were in the high thirties, and what few spectators had arrived to witness this first major alpine event could see neither the down hill poles set in the course for flags nor the racers, whisking by in the phantom-like setting. The first race is believed to have been a giant slalom in 1951. In 1952 the first Sugarloaf Schuss in conjunction with the second giant slalom was run, the trail being Winter’s Way but this time was finished to F.I.S. specifications. It was still a “Let’s climb up and point them down” - a technique used in those days as no lifts had been erected to this date on the Mountain, and as Dick Bell’s accompanying history mentions in this edition, it was pretty much a do-it-yourself style of skiing in those days. You had to climb up whether on foot or with climbing skins attached to your feet, and after two runs down and two climbs up, the whole day seemed to have gone by for you were exhausted. The Sugarloaf Schuss was originated by a group of interested individuals here at the Mountain who, because of the magnitude of this bald-top dome above them and the interest created by alpine skiers in the surrounding communities, decided that the Sugarloaf Schuss was a needed training ground and race to have in the state of Maine.
 |
|
Mary Lou Sprague with a 1952 winner’s smile at the spring schuss.
|
|
All other alpine races at this time were held in the pleasure ski resorts of Vermont and New Hampshire. The interest generated by this group, notably Amos Winter and other Kingfield-ites, and another group from Farmington, came to be the Wilderness Warlords in this ski venture. The Sugarloaf Schuss is a temperamental old lady herself showing her many faces in the varying temperatures in which she has been run and the varying conditions which have happened here at the Mountain. In 1952 there was a fog so thick you could cut it, and the racers had to nearly stop in places and peer onward to the next gate. This first Schuss was 46.4 seconds. Interestingly enough, another old Sugarloaf who has been here since those first days, Bob Irish, was right behind him, coming in just 2.4 seconds behind Hawkes. Peter Webber also ran in this race as did Audie Thompson, Jack “Whitie” Beattie, Hank Poirier from Waterville, Brud Folger (now ski coach at the University of Maine), our own Robert “Stub” Taylor (head of Sugarloaf Ski Patrol) and H. Norton “Icky” Webber. These were a few fellows who slung their skis over their back on that April day and climbed up slowly through the fog to come down again in less than a minute, and we mustn’t leave the ladies out as there were ladies who ran that first race also in 1952. Edith Curtis won it; she was from Orono. Right behind her came Janet Lauderdale of Stowe, Vermont. Another sweet thing from Cambridge, Massachusetts, arrived here on that foggy day and came in fourth place and hasn’t left the Mountain since, she being Mary Lou Sprague, Phinneus Sprague’s wife. Seventh in that race was Amos Winter’s niece, Amanda Winter from Kingfield. In 1953 and 1954, a Dick Church from Bowdoin came up to put all the other boys to shame, capturing the Schuss in both years, with Bob Irish, a
 |
|
Photos from top, left to right:
Custavo Thoein on top stump with silver axe trophy in 1971 World Cup schuss; Anne Marie Proell pushes out of the starting gate en route to World Cup crown at Sugarloaf, 1971; Ski Club members strap on “skins” to climb for 1955 race.
|
|
student at the University of Maine, a close second, losing by two seconds. In 1954 a formidable team of schussers drove all the way from Middlebury, Vermont, when Bobo Sheehan’s fantastic alpine team composed of Peter Webber, Les Streeter (who eventually went on to become a National Team member), Tom Burns, Tommy Lamson and Marcel Cote arrived at Sugarloaf that year and found the April weather here at the ‘Loaf a zero degree day and whipping into their faces a strong wind. But all proved to no avail as Mr. Chruch bested everyone in this competition throughout the two years. Suzanne Luce, one of the racing Luces from Farmington, won the race in 1953 and in 1954 was bested by Pokey Reid and Jill Flint from Farmington who came in third. Amanda Winter came in third in the 1953 Schuss and fifth in the 1954. There were some junior racers in those days coming up through the ranks who would eventually go on to bigger and better honors – Norm Twitchell from Farmington, Icky Webber from Farmington, Ricky Marco, Chris Quimby from Bingham and other such notable men. In 1955, there were 96 entries in the race, and Roy Wilcox won the Class A men’s competition with Paul Keeley, the old Gould Academy coach coming in right behind Wilcox, followed third by Bob Beattie, who of course went on to become U.S. Team and Olympic Team member himself. The giant slalom, which happened to be the fifth giant slalom, run in conjunction with the Schuss that year, was won by Bob Beattie. Suzanne Luce came in second right behind Leona Perry from North Conway that year with Jill Flint a close third. In 1964 Tyler Palmer, a youngster from Kearsarge, New Hampshire, and his brother Terry, came over here to capture the 13th Annual running of the Schuss when Tyler took the Class III boys competition and Terry took the Class IV boys’. Another newcomer, young Tim Skaling, was second in the Class IV boys’ that year out of 174 entries total. The Class A men’s was won by Frankie Emery with Jay Langley coming in a close second behind him. Fourth was Chris Quimby from Bingham. In the Class B that year Ricky Marco won it. Onward and upward through the years, the Sugarloaf Schuss saw some of the wildest change, radical changes in the snow and temperature conditions, from the first day in 1952 when a cold, rainy fog was the weather, to 1954 with zero degrees and the wind in your face, all the way up to 1967 when they had to cancel the race completely because of lack of snow – the only year, by the way, in which the Schuss could not be run in April – to 1968 where they day in April saw 65-degree volunteers shoveling snow onto the trail to make a very small white ribbon in the center, and everyone got such a sunburn that day that Harv Boynton’s shop at the base of the Mountain saw its biggest seller in Sea ‘ Ski and Noxzema suntan lotion. In April of 1960 probably the largest amount of entries were run when 305 skiers stood at the top and awaited their turn for the run down. Since those days, the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski club has had to run the Sugarloaf Schuss according to the F.I.S. seeding points establishing a minimum qualification order for the racers as quality of the Eastern class racers have become such that the numbers of skiers today would necessitate cutting the running orders down to a number around 100 racers. The Sugarloaf Schuss has been a queenly old girl. In the last three years she has sported the names of some of the best skiers in the world on the side of
 |
|
Young Robert “Bird-Shot” Anderson of Auburn in Sunny 1956 spring schuss.
|
|
her trophy. In 1969, Ron Biederman, a member of the U.S. Alpine Team, won the race, with Lindy Cochran winning it for the women. In 1970 the big contender for the slalom crown in the Olympics, Tyler Palmer, came back to establish his name on the Schuss Cup, and Gail Blackburn, our own little gal from Sugarloaf, took the honors for the ’70 crown. In 1971 we hosted the Tall Timber Classic which for the prestigious spectacular of the World Cup Races the Sugarloaf Schuss was renamed for that one year to become the Classic, and it was this race in which Gustavo Thoeni, the 1971 men’s World Cup winner, and Anne Marie Proell, the 1971 women’s World Cup winner, both won. This year it will be run again on April 8 and 9. The race has always been run the month of April, and, of course, we are looking forward to a fantastic spectator day when all the plastic suits and the Epoxy boards and the bright flashing banners and flags now become the symbols of the Sugarloaf Schuss. It’s been a long day since the old Hannes Schneider ski hats with the turned up bills and the baggy gabardines went flashing down over in that first fog-shrouded course, but the spirit will always remain the same – that of the hardy life and the endurance tests which the old Sugarloafer Schuss herself has put upon the many racers who have gone down over her white flanks. New times have been established each year, and now the race is run on the Narrow Gauge trail, the site of the World Cup races, but there is always a tear in the eye of many an old racer who returns each year to look up at that long, white ribbon called Winter’s Way on which they first climbed all day long, prepared to ski and made that fast descent down and the Sugarloaf Schuss was born.
)
)
)
)
