The Smitty Steven's race is a ski race that the meeting organizes plan each year. It serves two functions: 1) to honor and remember a colleague who loved to ski, who loved science, and who loved to attend the WCBR meeting and 2) to provide a fun activity for meeting attendees, their spouses, friends and their children.

Skiers and snowboarders at all skill levels compete for awards that are distributed at the final banquet.

Each year the fastest female scientist and the fastest male scientist are declared the Smitty Steven's Award winners. They win the honor of having their names engraved upon one of the short skis fabricated and skied upon by Smitty. This highly prestigious award, which has appeared under the Awards column on several professional curriculum vitae, is cherished by WCBR attendees. In addition, there are 8 trophies and many, many WCBR medals that are awarded to skiers according to age, gender, occupation, and type of competitor (i.e. alpine skier, telemark skier or snowboarder). The race course is not steep, nor is it very long (approximately 15 gates) and practice runs are available on the course earlier in the week.

Racers must register for the race by completing paperwork at the WCBR information desk, as well as completing the Smitty Steven's Race section of their conference registration.

Here's to another year of healthy competition!

For additional information, please contact the Smitty Steven's Race 2012 organizer: Tom Swanson, leaddomino@gmail.com