It was another great day for the NWVT racers at Mt. Hor this weekend. Once again five skiers competed with an impressive showing for our small club. The temp was 14 degrees at race time, chilly but still comfortable for most parts. There was a slight NW wind blowing a very light flurry by. The course was two figure eights with a steady 300 foot climb that began around the midpoint of the 5k loop. The trails were groomed wide and even; with a nice blend of hard packed crusty snow, and a little packed powder on top. Sporting a new pair of boards and leading off for NWVT was Perry Bland. Starting early meant going out with amongst some of the top St. Lawrence and Middlebury College skiers. Coming through the 2k and the 5k marks Perry looked strong, and was holding his own skiing with the top contenders of the day. Perry's solid performance was inspiring to all in the starting corral, including the rest of the club members as he quietly cruised through the lap zone, in the zone. Shortly after Perry went by, the next three NWVT skiers were up in consecutive 30 second start intervals. Leading the NWVT train was new-comer Vincent Lepeltier, a former BFA skier now attending the University of Rochester. Clearly skiing a few notches above where he was last week, it was hard to tell that he is cross training for crew. Next off was Scott Magnan, and then Damian Bolduc. The three stayed relatively close together for the first 4k of the race until Scott hammered through the switchbacks on the downhill portion of the course leaving Vincent and Damian in his dust. Vincent and Damian then spent the rest of the race working their way through traffic, picking off one skier at a time, finally coming to an exciting sprint finish with Vincent just edging Damian to the line. Lary Martell started a few minutes back from the previous three and finished well, even though he was recovering from a traffic accident earlier in the week. With all the results tallied, Scott was NWVT's top finisher again this week, putting a 90 second gap on Damian. Perry and Vincent also made the first page of results by finishing within a minute of Damian, and Lary was only 30 seconds off them on an off-day for him. It is nice to see everybody out for another great event. For full results and a great photo of Perry on his new skis and in the zone sprinting to the finish go to www.nensa.net (Perry is # 67). The club scored very competitively against other local clubs, and with this much improvement in the short races it will be interesting to see what we can do in the longer races where we are stronger.