The preparations at Pohorje are continuing under the expert guidance by the inventor of the injection board Christian Steinbach from Kitzbühl.
"The weather forecast is favourable, although the day temperatures will remain high. What counts most is that the nights will be clear, which means the thickness of the snow foundation and its hardness will be preserved," explained the Chief of the Race for the 51st Golden Fox Gorazd Bedrač before the beginning of the series of events next weekend at Pohorje.
Two days for hardening the entire track
Nothing will be left to chance, therefore the world greatest expert for preparation of snow racing tracks Christian Steinbach from Austria came to Maribor in the beginning of this week. He advises a number of world cup races organizers, and under his professional guidance the organizers from Maribor used the injection board to inject water (500 cubic metres) into the snow in the lower part of the track, and repeated the procedure on Tuesday in the upper part of the giant slalom track.
Equal conditions for higher numbers
Steinbach's method of injecting water into snow is using a special board with several thousands of small holes. Thus density of snow increases from 350 to 580 kilograms per cubic meter, resulting in a very hard track, yet the snow doesn't freeze or turn into ice (the weight of ice being 900 kg per cubic metre). Hard, but not icy track assures quite similar racing conditions also to competitors with higher start numbers, and improves safety of competitors, as no holes form between the gates.
Gorazd Bedrač continued: "By injecting water we keep the snow foundation hard also in warm weather, as no water is applied to the surface, and melting is thus avoided. In this manner the snow foundation will keep its quality until weekend."
Organizers of Vitranc lent a hand
Between the two races, giant slalom on Saturday and slalom on Sunday, important interventions will be required. Smoothing of the surface by skis after each competitor is of extreme importance on such a hard track in warm weather – on Sunday even rain can be expected. Therefore the organizers of the Maribor race will be helped by their colleagues from Kranjska gora. During the weekend the team of Andrej Rečnik, Chief of Course, will be reinforced with thirty skiers from Vitranc Cup, usually in charge of smoothing the track at Podkoren during male World Cup races in Podkoren.
To. G.
Translated by G. K.
