Rennstall Tech Center General Manager Andy Buckley worked as a ski technician for the U.S. Ski Team from 2001-18.  Buckley readied the top athletes in the world, many on the snowboard cross team, for World Cups and Olympic and Paralympic Games. When Buckley stepped away, he maintained many o f those athlete relationships. He also trained several more technicians, who now work for the ski team.  Those relationships, and the fact that the tech center has expensive automated tuning machines, are why athletes continue to pour in the door to ready for their seasons. Buckley explained how it makes better financial sense for the ski team to have him and his staff tune their athletes’ equipment and send them a large end-of-season bill, rather than bring the tuning equipment setup at the Center of Excellence up to speed.  “We have automated machines versus the manual machine that they have at the ski team building,” Buckley said. “I was lobbying hard (back in the day) just to even get machinery in there because the budget for them when they were building the (Center of Excellence) was supposed to include outfitting that room with all the top-level machinery, and I think they ran out of money and we were the last thing to get funded.” The automated machines can help tune skis in a matter of minutes versus hours. This helps Rennstall turn around athletes’ equipment right as they head to competitions or quickly if they mail it in to be shipped back out. The cost for the type of automated machine Rennstall has is about $750,000 versus $20,000-$50,000 for manual setups.  “There’s an athlete walking through the door right now,” Buckley said on Monday. “They’re all getting ready, depending on the team, to leave. … The ski slopestyle guys and ski halfpipe guys are the ones mainly coming through. And I still do a lot of boards for different boardercross teams.” Rennstall uses a machine costing about $750,000, which helps them tune equipment in a matter of minutes not hours. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record The word about Rennstall’s quality has spread around the world-class winter sports community. The store does a lot of business when events like the Deer Valley World Cup come to town. Buckley and his crew are excited for that event’s return and the arrival of the Shaun White Snow League stop the week before in January. Buckley does estimate that the professional athletes’ tunings only make up about 10% of the store’s business, however, and that they cater to the everyman.  “We do a ton of the public’s skis,” Buckley said. “The athletes trust us and our equipment and knowledge, and if it’s going out there on the World Cup and international competition (stage), we can definitely tune for the common man as well. … The tunes (the athletes receive) out of our machine are not much different than what we’re putting on for the general public.” Rennstall is now located on Bonanza Drive in Park City, having relocated from their Deer Valley Snow Park space where they were for about a decade after this past ski season. JANS has owned Rennstall for decades, and JANS also left the Snow Park base, where they had a location since the resort’s opening in 1981. Rennstall hopes to not miss out on too much business that came in while skiing at the resort, though they know they will be taking some sort of a hit.  Two-time Olympic freeskier Marin Hamill was one of Rennstall’s walk-in customers on Monday, picking up her skis for the World Cup season, which is set to start on Nov. 26 in Innsbruck, Austria. Hamill said she trusts the shop because technician Tanner Keim has been mounting her skis for the last five years.  Many of Buckley’s technicians work for the U.S. Ski Team during the winter. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record “(Keim) and the rest of the crew are incredibly skilled at what they do,” Hamill said. “They always do an amazing job, and I wouldn’t trust my skis with anyone else.” Olympic gold medalist Alex Hall, who is Hamill’s teammate, said he also works with Keim, who is the main wax technician for the U.S. freeski team.  “The team over there is the best,” Hall said. “(They’re) always ready to get our stuff done in a heartbeat and keeping our gear dialed in. … (Keim) is based out of the shop all year.” For more information about Rennstall, see their website: jans.com/pages/rennstall-tech-center.  Buckley worked for the ski team from 2001-18, going to five Olympic Games. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record The post Park City’s World Cup athletes trust their equipment to the Rennstall Tech Center appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less