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Show Teaching, coaching fine, but racing is 'real meat' says, is to try to make it easier on yourself to win races. Steve gives much credit for his improvement to his coach and teammates for their advice. Much of the difference between recreational skiing and racing is small in nature, and the knowledge he acquired teaching helped bridge this gap. "Now it's a physical sport that requires a high degree of technical knowledge. That's why I like it," he said. There are no special tricks in Steve's racing bag. "He's just like any other guy," said a friend. Said Steve, "I have no special diet or unusual habits. I don't even practice self-denial the nights before races." Christensen said the team has "quite a good schedule this year," including BYU, Westminster, Ricks, Weber State and Utah State. i By GARY LESSER it- Chronicle Staff ,1' steve Johnson, University of Utah ski racer, has run the gamut of I skiing, from recreational to in-structional, in-structional, to coaching and now " i racing. Of these points on the ' "j white, fluffy spectrum, he opts for " : racing because "the competitive aspect is the real meat of the K sport." Pl!A aspects of skiing point ""j towards and help educate the : racer. Steve's experience as an m; jnstructor at Alta for the last two years proved invaluable to the technical aspects of his skiing. "It II gave me the ability to analyze my ;"';own skiing and critically review '. an(j improve myself and increase my awareness of what was happening-the physics involved. in-volved. I can more easily relate a specific technique to somebody lse," he said. i realistic part of Steve's :haracter details a small side lenefitof his old Alta job. "I can it around and B.S. with the best if 'em," he says. jniversity ski coach Ladd Ihristensen says the season legan with 40 men on the team. We now have 35 as compared nth 10 in previous years," said I L .it Id. Of these, seven are on the J A ' team. Currently, Steve is not t Kie of the seven, but is fighting or a spot among them. n one race this year, Steve's . kmces for the "A" team were i frlioked heavily due to his j nability to complete that race landing up. Of the race, he said, I had the first of the season i ilues. I didn't have it together." JVlthough he isn't one of the stars if the team (yet), he is doing verything he can to remedy that ituation. He says racing mostly is 3"P" matter of dedication, a matter 1 N devoting one's whole life to the port. ntc. You've really got to get caught .W p in it," he said, "in order to be v0lr'ally successful." Much of it is si, it's intuitive, he said. "Timing fat' also extremely important. Being venvare enough that everything ra!fappens almost as a reflex. When at Du are coming down a course, Jt j,, :u don't even have time to think ,e Jout it. In a race, you're just kind i doing it." racer's job on the day of a race 8 ivolves much more than hurtling 'azily through a series of flushes HEUid hairpins, though. "You spend wjie first part of the day looking ijyerthe course. Then you decide . . way to ski the course which I Sfcyolves doing certain things at k jrtain times and you try to member where it all is and don't j yourself get nervous," he said, s long blond hair draping over his collar, in the style of French racers. But once he has taken off, the racer may lose an edge here, hit an unexpected rut there, throwing his plan off during is brief but speedy shot on the course. "A good racer ('I'm not there yet') can re-adjust his attack while skiing the course. When you ski a course, you've got to adjust to whether you are meeting your timetable or not," he said. While perched in the starting gate, his blue eyes peering out over the steep vertical pitch below, in addition to thinking the race through, Steve attempts to maintain his cool. "The biggest thing is to remain relaxed," he says. Accordingly, his favorite race is the seldom run downhill, where he says he is the most relaxed. Unlike most racers, he feels the downhill isn't the most dangerous of the three alpine events. A shattering blow to a racer's pride is to be disqualified, or not to finish the race (DQ or DNF in the official standings). "Your only thoughts when you fall are of trying to get back on the course. When you fall it's because you've tried everything you know and somewhere failed." As far as the goals go, Steve says in ski racing it is purely personal. You don't shoot for number one in the world or decide to run the course in a set time. "I have an idea of how I should be performing per-forming and I want to meet this standard. It's not tangible, it's very personal. That's why I'm racing. I'm not in it for the glory," he says. This is Steve's first year or organized racing since early in his Hillcrest High School days. "He's improved immensely since the beginning of the year," said Coach Christensen. "He's just one example of the "B" team pushing the other guys ("A" team) for their spots." Another example of this is David (Willi) Cheney, who doubled as Steve's best man at his wedding late last month. Willi, said Christensen, made a good showing at the team's December race, and has a good chance or racing for the "A" team. Steve expects some sort of fatigue near the end of the season, but realizes that he must place high in the early races in order to get a low seeding. "I hope to get FIS points," he said. "The lower your points, the lower your seeding gets, the earlier you start and technically this makes it easier to get even fewer points," he said. The idea behind these points, he |