Blowing snow, freezing rain, and some missing safety fences forced American Snowboard Tour organizers to cancel the Mt. Snow Giant Slalom Friday morning. The GS was to be the first event of the North American Championships of the American Snowboard Tour.

Fallen Timber, the run where the race was supposed to have been run today. Sometimes safety comes first.

Scheduled to run in the Giant Slalom were 56 men and 11 women including members of the Cross M and US Pro Snowboard Teams. Mark Fawcett arrived ready to add win number three in the last week. "I just won the last two races in France and Italy," Fawcett said. "And I wanted to keep the winning streak going right through the Open."

Lisa Kosglow, the current women's Paul Mitchell Rider's Cup leader, was looking for win number six on the AST tour and wasn't happy that the race was postponed. "I was totally bummed," she said. "I was really psyched up for the race. I have a goal to win the last two events of the year and if this race doesn't run then it's going to mess my strategy up."

Technical Director Yvon Laverdiere cancelled the race at 11:30 and ended Fawcett and Kosglow's chances at least for today . "The storm was faster than we were," Laverdiere said. "There were 8 to 9 inches of snow on the course and we just couldn't keep the course safe enough for the riders."

Most of the riders agreed. "It was pretty bad up there," said Peter Thorndike, leader of the Paul Mitchell Rider's Cup Alpine points standing. "The course itself was good, but the snow was piling up pretty fast. I'm in the lead as far as points go, but I'd rather win this by racing."

After an hour long meeting the race jury decided to postpone the race until 9:00 am Saturday on Ego. "We're going to run a race tomorrow," said Eric Sherman, project manager of the AST. "This is the North American Championships so we're going to run it, we can figure out the FIS points later."

The North American Finals continue tomorrow with a halfpipe competition.

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