Charlie Coltrain has been affiliated with the Wasatch Citizens Series since 1973.
With every new season, the Salt Lake native can see the numbers of participants and spectators continue to grow.
“Everybody has a good time,” said Coltrain as he toed the finish line, his timing device in hand, at Soldier Hollow on Saturday. “It’s a Citizen Series race.”
The Wasatch Citizen Series season-opening race set a classical technique WCS event record with 229 cross-country skiers. Among the crowd of skiers was Parkite and Olympic medalist Billy Demong.
The 10.3-kilometer race had a marathon-type touch to it as only 2K of Soldier Hollow’s track was in use, leaving the entire course congested with skiers.
Miles Havlick won the men’s open race with a time of 30:30.4. Demong came in fifth with a time of 32:02.4.
Sarah MacCarthy won the women’s open race with a time of 36:29.9, finishing six seconds in front of second-place Zoe Roy.
The season’s first race came on the heels of a significant snowfall that tracks around Summit and Wasatch County had been sorely lacking.
While racers remained competitive, the atmosphere was one of enjoyment and satisfaction that another year of Citizen races has downed upon the northern Utah cross-country skiing community.
Gordon Lange, cross-country coach for the Park City Nordic Ski Club, was thrilled to see the large turnout, mostly because he knows his team needs useful tune-ups before its season starts in mid-January.
“Any time you race you learn something,” Lange said. “Whether it’s technically or strategy-wise. There’s always something to learn about yourself in races that you can’t duplicate in training.”
Lange singled out racing experience as one of his team’s critical necessities and he knows the WCS can provide that element on a consistent basis.
“It’s great that they have such good competitive races that we can use,” Lange said. “Everybody sort of uses this as a race to experiment with.”
Lange said while the snowfall was a must, the soft snow proved to be a little tricky and forced skiers to slow down, a good thing in a race that features so many participants.
The burgeoning crowds at the weekly series are something to smile about, according to Lange. Historically, the featured races attracted strictly adults.
“Adults kept coming to races year after year, dragging their kids, and now you see a lot of younger kids racing,” Lange said. “They are growing up in that atmosphere and that tradition of ‘every Saturday we’re going to have to a Citizens race. Whether we want to or not, we’re going to have to enjoy it.’
“It’s really helped out the level of skiing around here.”
Heber native Jim Southwick, who finished fourth overall in the men’s 60-64 class, has been racing in the series for the past seven years and enjoys the series’ continuity.
“It’s fun because you see the same people,” Southwick said. “It’s always interesting to see how you can do racing against your friends.”
Coltrain’s familiarity with the series comes from a perspective as a both a competitor and an official.
“I raced and raced and raced and had a couple of injuries and went to the timing crew and have been working with this crew for about 10 years,” Coltrain said.
The jovial Coltrain pointed out that the mix of competitive and recreational skiers is hard for some racers, but he sees this particular blend as vital to the success of the series.
“The elite racers recognize those people out here having fun are also very important to have out here,” Coltrain said. “If you finish number one in front of 300 people, it’s a lot better than finishing number one in front of 10 or 15.”
The second official WCS event of the year will be on New Year’s Day, a 15-kilometer race at the White Pine Touring Center.
When asked if he gets excited for the commencement of the series season, Coltrain was succinct.
“Every single year,” he said.