The future for plastic racing...

So during the summer racing season we have both indoor and outdoor racing giving people a much wider choice than just a few years ago. Over the past couple of years the opportunity to race indoors has grown dramatically, the Graham Beck races have proved very successful and this year he is running a lot of races and peer pressure is pushing more people in that direction. At the same time SSE have started running more races indoors covering club nationals, grand prix and championships.

Now comes the careful balance when dealing with the future of the sport. Everyone would love to just be able to train and race indoors, but unfortunately this is just not practical for many due to the costs involved and location of the indoor centres. There will always be those who will only ski indoors (becoming more), those who will only ski outdoors and some will always try both.

If you listen to some people though you would think that there is only the indoor races available and everything else is a waste of time! There are some people who are already saying plastic racing is dead and a waste of time. It’s funny how some people can forget very quickly where the grass roots skiing started for many!

The death of plastic racing is still someway of despite what some people will lead you to believe. Take a look at where the main centres are, Hemel, Milton Keynes, Manchester, Braehead, Castleford. Not that many really and sure there are more being planned but not to saturation. If you live in the south, south east or south west there is not that much choice. The other issue is the costs involved. Hiring the indoor slopes is much more expensive that the plastic slopes which is reflected in the costs so there is less money in it for SSE and the club. Whereas there is more from the plastic racing.

Plastic racing still have a good future the challenge is how to harness that in the competitions that take place.

What worries me though for the future is that we end up short sighted and narrow minded people running the organisation of the racing and turn the focus solely to indoor. The would be a disaster for the sport, but at the moment I think we have a good balance which is keeping things in perspective. It will become harder over the coming years but we mustn’t forget that there is more than just indoor skiing, as much as we would all like to have one nearby.