Dallas Hebert

Dallas Hebert, Jilleanne Rookard and Jono Gorman were the GT representatives at this year's Tres Pistes races in France.

For those of you that have never been to these races, it is a series of three banked track competition in three different French towns on three consecutive days. The USA has a standing invitation from the French Roller Skating Federation to compete with the best up and coming skaters in Europe. They have age divisions like we do here in the USA, from their version of Tiny Tots (super mini filles/garcons) to World Class. There were a total of 849 skaters across all the divisions with the most hotly contested division being Cadets (Our Indoor Junior Division) which had 88 contestants.

Unlike our competitions where you get 30,20,10 points for your placement in a race -- and the person with the most points gets the overall, in these races, you are given a number which is equal to your placement (1,2,27,45,etc) and all the "placements" are added together and the person with the LOWEST points is the winner. Just like the Overall Champion on Ice, this method of scoring rewards the most consistent skater. You do not have to win any race to become the overall champion, as long as you place consistently higher across all races than any component.

For GT Speed, Dallas Hebert came in first among the Benjamins class with two 1st places and a 4th place for an overall 6pts. Another skater, Wannes VanPraet from Belgium, actually tied Dallas' 6 points, but since Wannes' points came from three 2nd placements, Dallas won in tie-breakers for his two first placements. Newspaper Coverage

Jono Gorman competed in the Cadets division and scored 4th place overall with a 5th, 8th and 6th place for each of his races for a total of 19 points. Jilleanne Rookard was in the highest division, World Class ladies, which actually had one more race than anyone else. She competed very strongly in all races, placing 1, 2, and 9 in the first three races. Then, a nasty fall in the 5k pts race caused her to place 23rd in that race, which dropped her from 2nd to 7th in the point standings.

GT Speed wants to congratulate all of the skaters that went to France this year. If you would like to consider a trip to France, contact Joe Cotter at nira@aol.com