PRINOTH, which was founded by Italian race car driver
Ernst Prinoth in 1951 and is now part of the HTI Group, has
been involved in the World Cup circuit for some time. It’s
worked closely with the U.S. ski team since 2014, as the of-ficial
grooming supplier to the team. It supplied groomers for
each of the past four World Cup events at Killington.
“We try to support any event that we can, within reason,
where any U.S. ski team involvement is there,” said Walter
Piekarz, PRINOTH’s vice-president of sales for snow groom-ing
in North America.
The company’s support for this year’s World Cup includ-ed
supplying three top-of-the-line grooming machines: the
LEITWOLF X Winch, BISON X Winch and HUSKY X with
passenger cabin.
The LEITWOLF X, which features an automatic winch
system, is a big, strong, high-horsepower machine that can
move mountains of snow and is one of PRINOTH’s most
popular machines. A six-cylinder diesel engine provides
530 horsepower (hp) and 2,460 Nm of torque and its track
width of 4.5 meters ensures the machine is sure-footed in
challenging terrain. The park version of the LEITWOLF X
also offers a larger range of motion for both blade and tiller.
The BISON X is similar to the LEITWOLF X, but on a
slightly smaller scale. Its versatility makes it ideal for use
on everything from funslopes and snowparks to ski-cross
courses and the slopes. Measuring 166 inches wide and 348
inches long, its manoeuvrability has made it one of the most
popular park vehicles on the market. It still packs quite a
COVER FEATURE
“Obviously the exposure we get
is great. But our main concern
is always to take care of our
customers and Killington is a
great customer. We value that
relationship and we want to
be there to help them.”
– Walter Piekarz, PRINOTH
next to no snow had fallen in the weeks leading up to the
World Cup. That meant Killington’s state-of-the-art snow-making
system was working overtime to get the course and
training runs ready.
“We have the ability to make a lot of snow, fast,” Wright said.
“Any East Coast resort wouldn’t survive without snowmaking.”
Thankfully, Wright and the Killington grooming team had a
bit of help when it came to moving that snow around.
Groomer manufacturer PRINOTH was a major sponsor of
this year’s World Cup. The company, with headquarters in
Sterzing, Italy, and Granby, Que., provided three state-of-the-art
snow groomers for the event and had a demo operator
on-hand to provide technical advice to the grooming staff at
Killington in the weeks leading up to the event and through-out
the two days of racing.
THE INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR SLOPE LIGHTING
/WWW.ULTRATECHLIGHTING.COM
