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Show ) by Jim Murray Tjnrrrrajy qpna spqpii V If ' I Thursday, February 5, 1981 Page 15 0 w. I I it 'V. V ,. y. . k ; mm jli f IV New kid on the starting block takes Parkwest telemark race By Frank Erickson A man who sells apartments apart-ments for a living and skis only occasionally beat the boys from Alta, Park City and even a ringer from Colorado to win the second telemark race in the Wasatch Wa-satch -Citizen's Series at Parkwest' J8BT3I. Dave Perkins, who had only run gates on crosscountry cross-country skis once prior to last Saturday's race, skied the dual giant slalom course in 25.8 seconds on his best run. Second was Alta's Rob Landis with a 26.1, followed by Brad Makoff from Park City at 26.87. Top women of the day were Dana Landale with 35.1 seconds, Mary Williams with 36.33, and Marie Francois with 37.24. Landale and Francois are from Park City. Snow driven by gusting winds, delays in starting the race, and delays during the race caused by malfunctioning malfunc-tioning timing equipment tried the patience of racers and spectators. In spite of these inconveniences, incon-veniences, 60 racers registered and made two runs each down the fast course. About four inches of packed, new snow covered the course with a layer of hard man-made snow underneath. un-derneath. Dave Perkins' victory was such a surprise to race officials of-ficials that he has almost denied it. The race was over, for all the classes had been announced, the prizes from Sunset Sports given away, and most racers were heading for home when Perkins approached R. J. Guiney, race coordinator. Perkins had checked in with the timekeepers after his second run and knew his time was 25-pIus seconds. So when Rob Landis was announced an-nounced the winner with a 26.1 second time, Perkins knew something was amiss and brought it to Guiney's attention. Guiney rechecked the results and declared Perkins had beat Landis and was the overall winner. . Later, Guiney explained that the mistake had occurred oc-curred simply because the committee tallying the results didn't know Perkins and couldn't believe an "unknown" could post such . a good time. So the collective decision has been made to add 10 seconds to Perkins time which placed him nineteenth. Perkins' victory can be contributed, in part, to his participation in alpine racing at college in Michigan, and to his unique approach to learning how to telemark. "Some friends took movies of telemark racers .at Vail." Perkins ex plained. "I am an amateur cinematographer and I studied the movements of the skiers frame-by-frame the night before the Brighton race." On borrowed equipment, equip-ment, he won the novice class at Brighton, and was so enthused about telemark racing that be bought hew boots and skis'for this race. Rumors circulated early on race day about a ringer from Colorado, brought in by Rossignol. Giving substance to these was the appearance of Mike Boone, an accomplished accom-plished telemark skier who directs the '"Telemark Challenge" at Berthound Pass. Boone's raw time on his second run was the best of the day: 25.3 seconds. But gatekeepers penalized him four seconds for making four parallel turns, placing him eleventh. This man, who claims to have taught 2,000 people how to make telemark turns and has written writ-ten a book on the subject, did not take kindly to having his technique penalized. But gatekeepers defended their calls, saying Boone would snap into a telemark position before a gate, then ski past it parallel. By the race rules, adopted from the Summit Series in Colorado, such technique is penalized. "I couldn't believe my time. My first run was completely com-pletely out of control," said Dana Landale, fastest woman of the day. "I took my second run slow and in control. I'd like to see a tigh' slalom course where turns count more than just staying up." "The storm helped out conditions, but I expect there would have been more participants par-ticipants if the canyons hadn't been clogged," commented com-mented R. J. Guiney, race coordinator. The base layer of man-made man-made snow made the course better as it didn't rut out. Even though the turnout was smaller than I expected, there were a lot of new faces at the race." Oldest racer telemarking the course was Ed Phelps from Kaysville. Phelps often is seen at Nordic track races, but this was his firsi try at a telemark race. Ed had a tough first run, but already had begun to pick up the knack on his second try. "I'm not used to running gates," he said. "Bu on my second run, I only took one spill." Phelps is a member of the "70 plus" ski club, a group of 350 skiers, all of whom are 70 or older. Twenty Twen-ty members of the club are over 80 and one is over 90, making Phelps a relative youngster at age 75. The next telemark race will be Feb. 21, again at Parkwest. i ' 4 . '-"a"' . " - .2.i; .1 m I f 1 w. - i iiMiflptf V(k i -- A ft th Mm . TOP: Racers went head-to-head in the dual slalom telemark race. MIDDLE: Ed Phelps in his first telemark race ... at 75 years of age. BOTTOM: Parkite Carl Dolhausen negotiates a gate, while his competition com-petition look a header. The NFL's James Boys steal a championship New Orleans Are you ready for a shock? Brace yourself: the AFC won the Super Bowl here. And a pie's round and there's a cow in Texas and water boils at sea level at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Clean living took another shot to the eye. The good guys got run up the draw. The claim jumpers took over the territory. The Gary Coopers got dry-gulched. The good guys never even really got their guns out of the holsters. The Captains Courageous got belted by the Captain Bloods. Those are white hats in the dust. Mothers, don't raise your sons to be Boy Scouts, altar boys, lifeguards, preachers. Raise 'em to be Oakland Raiders. Take down those wall maxims. Early to bed and early to rise and you get beat 27-10. Throw away the copybook homilies. Hold the ice cream and apple pie. I'll take a shot and a beer. The team that trained on Bourbon Street, the one that had to hire five guards to keep the tackles in after midnight the night before the game, threw the other one around like rag dolls, the one that was in bed with the playbook by 10 and the only adult films they saw had fully clothed guys all wearing helmets and playing the Green Bay Packers. The Oakland football team is just a bunch of All-American boys like everybody else. But, in 27 boardrooms of the NFL, they are as outlaw as the James Boys. There's a price on their head and on that of their leader, Al Davis, the Sundance Kid. To them, he's the kind of guy you lock up the kids and board up the bank when he comes to town. He's trying to take his team on the lam with him to L.A. and you'd think he was stealing Rhode Island. Only the Philadelphia Eagles stood between him and the championship champion-ship of all football Sunday. And there are bits and pieces of them lying all over Main Street. To understand how Commissioner Pete Rozelle and his 27 owners feel you'd have had to be in Paris when the Germans marched through. So, take that, Frank Merriwell. Run up the Jolly Roger and let's hear it for the team that leads the league in drunk-driving arrests and big games won. The last two Super Bowls they've been in, the score was Oakland 59, NFC 24. The Oakland Raiders won the game because they had the better receivers. For instance, everyone was afraid of the skyscraping Philadelphia receiver, Harold Carmichael. To play him, you have to get a ladder. He goes 7 or 8 feet or something. Well, the Philadelphia quarterback completed almost as many passes to a receiver named Rod Martin as he did to Carmichael. Rod Martin caught more Ron Jaworski passes than all but two Philadelphia Eagles. This is curious because Rod Martin doesn't play for the Philadelphia Eagles. He must have run better routes than they did because Ron Jaworski found him open three times Sunday. I guess habit asserted itself. Jaworski hates to throw the football away; so, he found Rod Martin open on three key plays and, as the guys who laid three points on Philly say, "That's show biz." Rod Martin's not supposed to catch anybody's passes. He's a linebacker and he's primarily supposed to pull people, not footballs, down. The three passes he intercepted Sunday were not only a Super Bowl record, they were one more than he had intercepted all year. Oakland's receivers are supposed to win games for them but they're supposed to catch Jim Plunkett's passes, not Eagles'. You can't fault Jaworski too much. You see, on a pass play, the Eagles only have five eligible receivers. The Raiders have 11 eligible. The temptation is strong. Jaworski completed his first pass to Martin on the third play of the game on the Eagle 47 and Martin returned it to the Eagle 30 whence the Raiders scored their first touchdown. Jaworski's second completion to Martin came as the Eagles were driving toward the Raider goal to make the game close. Martin caught the pass on the Raiders' 34 and they got a field goal out of that to put the game out of reach, 24-3. The third interception, you'd have to say, by now, Jaworski was comfortable with Martin's routes and delivered it to him in the flat. It was a nice spiral. Rod Martin really turned the game around, so to speak. Which is also curious, because he's not supposed to be the star in the Oakland defense. Ted Hendricks is, the "Mad Stork," "Ted Terrific," the guy who's so good he's allowed to do whatever he thinks best out there. Rod Martin was drafted (out of USC) on the "afterthought round," 14th, the "Well, let's see what's in the bottom of the barrel." After the Raiders got him, they didn't want him. They traded him to San Francisco. He couldn't even last there, which is like being kicked out of the Salvation Army. Several clubs expressed an interest. Rod tried out with the Chicago Bears, Kansas City Chiefs, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They told him to leave his number, they'd get back. But it was the Raiders who got back. They traced him to the beach at Santa Monica where he was running with his dog to stay in shape. "It was the weight thing," Rod explained after the Super Bowl Sunday. "They thought I was too light. I weighed 207. But I kind of revolutionized the linebacker weight style. Jerry Robinson (Eagle linebacker) line-backer) might think he did, but I was here two years before he was . " The Jaworski-to-Martin may not go down in history with the great combinations like Dorias-to-Rockne, Isbell-to-Hutson, Baugh-to-Millner, but Ron's completions to Rod were the most important of the day. They decided the Super Bowl. Ron completed 21 passes altogether, 18 to assorted Eagles, and 3 to Rod Martin. But, then, every great passer has a great receiver. So, the team whose coach never sleeps lost to the team whose players never sleep, so long as the beer is flowing and the honky tonks are open and the sun hasn't come up yet. The Oakland team won because, as usual with an AFC team, they were so much faster than the Philadelphia team, they made the Eagles look like a bunch of guys waiting for a bus. They also won, because, as Rod Martin said, "The Raiders like to loosen it up, lighten it up on you, they don't require that you stand at attention or goose step." The Raiders are the first wild card team ever to win this tournament. That's altogether fitting. In fact, the word "card" doesn't need to be there. In fact, this is a team which would have to shape up considerably to be considered merely "wild." But they unveiled the most devastating forward-pass combination since Walter Camp or maybe it was George Halas invented the thing. Jaworski couldn't have gotten the ball to him more effectively if Martin was wearing green and they'd been practicing all week. In fact, only two receivers on his own team caught more passes than Rod Martin did. That's why the Oakland Raiders are going home with a big silver bowl and 27 people are gnashing their teeth. The team nobody wanted is the team that got it all. And Ron Jaworski can someday say in his memoirs, "The most effective receiver I ever threw to was playing outside linebacker for the Oakland Raiders a' the same time." Too bad, because they were ;cture passes. 1981 Los Angeles Times Now Open 5:30-11:00 7 Days a Week WWi' Park City, Utah A picture 's worth a W w 1,000 words on Valentines9 Day! Have your favorite snapshot enlarged and framed for a gift. 15 off at Main St. Photographer developing & enlarging & cibachrome prints from slides. 15 off at Johnson Gallery for custom framing. uniframes, silver & gold metal moulding Offer Ends Feb. 10th |