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Show Tough tour, bruised ego brings Parkite home For most of the racers on the Peugeot Pro Tour, ParkWest represented just one stop. But for Duane Hendrickson it represented repres-ented the end of the line. Hendrickson, a Park City resident who makes his living painting houses, spent the last few weeks following the Peugeot tour, trying to qualify for the final round of 32. He never quite made it. "I skied hard and I trained hard," Hendrickson reported. "I was knocking on the door." He said he came within two places of qualifying in one race, within four on another occasion. Three other times he crashed. "Every week it was as if my ego was ground like a cigarette butt," he said. "There's no room to make a lot of mistakes. Those pro races are tough." The top prize at ParkWest was $4,000. Unless you are good enough to make the final 16, he said, you end up spending more than you make. "The competition is just too much to make it worthwhile. These guys (the top money-winners) money-winners) all have big sponsors. They get money from the equipment manufacturers before the season starts. That's not me." Hendrickson's comments came Monday after he had accepted the trophy for the fastest time in the men's Pro class (and the fastest time overall) in the Park City Town Race. While other town racers were describing the course as the toughest in some time, Hendrickson had a different perspective. "There hasn't been a course this easy in the Peugeot (series) all year," he said. |