Downtown Sprints Coming To Madison, Wisconsin This Winter.

Is adequate snow more or less a guarantee? Will you be stockpiling snow well in advance of the event?

“The snow will be made at the Tyrol Basin Ski Area—they are one of the anchor sponsors of the race. It’s about 25 miles east of Madison. They’re going to make about 100,000 square feet of snow. We’re not going to need that much, but they are just going to ensure we have enough, just in case. That will pretty much guarantee us because that’s about twice as much as we’ll need.”

How about the logistics as far as trucking in the snow?

“We have a contract with Hammersley Stone Trucking Company, we’re paying them. There will be 14 trucks driving back and forth, and the total amount will be 70 to 80 dump trucks of snow.”

Snow-cat or snowmobile groomed?

“Piston Bully Company is one of the major sponsors. They will bring all necessary grooming equipment and will take care of grooming the course.”

“We have 3 anchor sponsors. One is Tyrol Basin, they’re taking care of the snow and that’s probably about $10,000 right there. Another anchor sponsor is Sepp Sport. Sepp Candinas will be chief of the course so he’ll be putting up the course and working with the volunteers and everything. And then my program [Russian Style Ski School]…I’m taking care of [overall event] organization.”

Are you still hunting for other sponsors in addition to the three anchor sponsors?

“Yes, we are looking for sponsors.”

Any word on local and/or national TV coverage?

“Local coverage will be for sure, I’m working right now on the media sponsorships. National…I talked to Luke Bodensteiner about this, and we decided just to go this year, make it happen, make it very good, and maybe next year do a live broadcast. But if it’s a really big crowd of people, OLN might come…it’s really hard to say at this point how much interest we’ll bring for national TV.”

Are you hoping to increase the prize money even farther above the SuperTour standard?

“We were thinking about it, but probably not for this year. Right now we need to plan for the future and budget it.”

Is there a chance this will become an annual event?

“Yes, we’re trying to make it an annual thing. We have plans for the future…it may even be possible to have a World Cup. But it’s kind of early to talk about this…”

Interested sponsors can visit the newly launched website at:
www.capitolsquaresprints.org

Watch for online registration, coming soon on the same site. Athlete entry fees for the SuperTour race will be roughly $30 to $35.

More information on the Russian Style Ski School: www.rsss-usa.com