By Brooke Geery
It was an exhilarating weekend of banked slalom action at The Beast as the ninth edition of Slash and Berm banked slalom took over the Stash terrain park. The Slash and Berm is held in partnership with the resort and our friends at Darkside Snowboards and Burton Snowboards with all proceeds benefiting a select cause. This year, the cash went to Burton rep Ryan Manning to aid with the costs incurred following a serious injury.
The race kicked off under sunny skies on Friday with the invite-only team event, where shop teams of four from around New England vied for the coveted Bear trophy to live in the winning shop. Though it’s always a tight race, local favorite Darkside Snowboards was able to nab the ‘W’ and the Bear can now be visited in the Killington store for the next 365 days.
“We’re stoked to bring the bear home,” Darkside General Manager Tucker Zink said. “The boys from Maine always put up a tough fight, but shouts to Storm Rowe for putting down a blazing time and securing the win for us!”
Saturday was the main event, with around 100 racers making their way through the course, which had been hand-crafted by the Woodward Killington Park crew over the previous week. Of course, it also happened to be one of the biggest powder days of the year, with 16” of fresh snow falling overnight and into the morning. Though not ideal for speed, it made for awesome powder laps for competitors while the team dug out the course.
Once racing action got started, riders each got two runs to nail their best time. The fastest three racers in each division scored handmade sword trophies.
Things wrapped up Sunday over on Ramshead in the L’il Stash with the grom event. For the first time, well, ever, the kids enjoyed a perfect day to speed through the course. About 40 l’il rippers ages 13 and under enjoyed a slightly gentler combination of whoops, berms and jumps and the top three times for groms and super groms were rewarded with Burton packs full of candy.
After three days of fast laps, $9,000 was raised for Manning’s recovery.
For more information visit: killington.com.
