Picture four one-way lanes of rush-hour traffic having to squeeze into one lane after rounding a corner.

Add snow and a steep hill and you'll have an idea what prompted the NCAA Men's and Women's Skiing Committee to allow the option of a pyramid mass start in cross country races this season.

Previously, all NCAA cross country races (also called Nordic races) had to use either the interval start or a standard mass start. In the NCAA championships, in which there are two Nordic races each for men and women, the shorter race uses an interval start; the longer race uses a mass start. In the interval, individual racers enter the course at 30-second intervals, with little risk of skiers bottlenecking as the course narrows to two lanes. The drawback to the interval -- which can be used for either race in the regular season but is used only for the shorter in the championships -- is similar for both skiers and fans. Both groups have a hard time knowing who is winning until the results are posted. Fans can't tell who or what they should cheer for. Seeing one competitor pass another may mean the difference between first and second or it may mean nearly nothing.

When the standard mass start is used at the championships (as it has been for the longer race for the last 10 years), rows of as many as 11 skiers each depart simultaneously and after several hundred meters, the course narrows to one or two lanes. Similar to highway driving, at the point at which the lanes break down, skiers have to jockey for position, which commonly results in broken poles or skis. That can be a real downer for a Nordic student-athlete, considering that as many as 19 kilometers lay ahead for men, 14 for women.

In a pyramid start, the lines are staggered so that they form an arrowhead shape. At no point are more than two skiers lined up horizontally. The position of the individual skiers is determined by seeding, with the fastest skiers getting the prime positions.

Less stress on equipment

Even in such long races, the start can make a difference in the outcome.

"The chance of breaking equipment (poles or skis) in a standard mass start is great," said Terry Aldrich, Nordic coach at Middlebury College and secretary-rules editor for the committee. "That's why you'll see coaches and teammates lined up along the course with extra skis and poles.

"The icier the course, the greater the risk for breakage, because the skiers have less of a chance to spread out (a faster course evens the field)."

Breakage is demoralizing when kilometer after kilometer awaits while others ski by.

Some in the skiing world look at such mishaps as just a part of racing, but committee chair Becky Woods, women's Nordic coach at Bates College, said that if there is a way to reduce them -- and the pyramid appears to do that -- it's the way to go.

"There should be plenty of space (with the pyramid) no matter how short the start is and it will be more fair for all skiers," Woods said.

A matter of position

Aldrich pointed out that many skiers like the mass-start format because they know exactly where they are in the race and how fast they need to ski to win.

"You don't necessarily want to be in the front, but you want to be close enough to it so that you can see if someone jumps off the front, you can decide whether to chase them," he said.

The start format becomes an issue mainly at the NCAA championships, and that, along with the short stadium at Dartmouth College, this year's host, is the main reason the pyramid was added as an option. Generally, if a regular-season event has an issue with the number of Nordic racers in a venue with a narrow start, it just uses the interval start. Since 10 years ago, the championships have required that there be one interval-start and one mass-start event for each gender. The goal is to reward different types of skiers or one who can adjust to either style. At many championship venues, the mass start works fine. At a stadium with a relatively narrow and short start area and an abrupt breakdown into two lanes, it sometimes does not.

The FIS, the international governing body for skiing, incorporated the pyramid two years ago.

"They experienced the same difficulties we do with some of our start areas not accommodating the size of the field well," Aldrich said. "The pyramid start spreads out the skiers in a more equitable way. I think the organizers just looked at the problem and asked, 'how can we solve it?' This was the answer."

And it appeared to be the answer that would help Dartmouth, which hasn't hosted the championships since 1978 (at Cannon Mountain and Bretton).

"We have a relatively small stadium with a downhill at the start that goes around a corner and then goes to an uphill going into the woods," said Cami Cardenali, the Ivy Group school's women's Nordic coach and former chair of the committee. "We were concerned about people locking up there."

The pyramid remains an option that will be decided upon by the games committee (which is the skiing committee at the championships) and the jury (the skiing competition officials) at each event, including the championships. Cardenali said that her squad will test the format a few times in practice before forming an opinion for the championships.

Seeding an issue

Knut Nystad, Nordic coach for defending champion University of Denver, has viewed the pyramid start in person a couple of times and has been impressed.

"I've seen it at the World Cup races, and it seems to be working well," he said. "The mass start has always been a part of NCAA skiing but it came from the international race format.

"They came up with this solution (to being on a course with a narrow start area) and we have been a little slow to pick it up until now."

As much of a solution as the pyramid seems, it has one inherent weakness for NCAA skiing as compared to international skiing. That's how to determine the seeds. In the international circuit, seeding is fairly clean-cut because a standard point system is used, plus all skiers generally race against each other all season. In NCAA skiing, there is little inter-region competition until the championships, so the only way to seed racers is based upon previous years' championships finishers in the three regions, some of whom have graduated.

Greg Cress, director of skiing at the University of Alaska Anchorage, which hosted last year's championships, said that his team's region, the West, generally has more finishers in the top 10 than the other two regions but the pyramid will only help a few of them, as potentially slower skiers from other region's might be positioned in front of them. For this reason, Cress said he thinks that use of the pyramid should be limited. That drawback is one reason the committee chose to list the pyramid as just an option.

"In situations where there isn't enough room at the start, (the pyramid) is more fair but if there is enough room, some competitors would be hurt by using it," Cress said.

Nystad agreed.

"We don't have uniform rankings, so it makes it difficult to have starts in which you have to rank everyone together," he said.

Cress said that despite his reservations, for some courses, the pyramid is the best way to go.

"It is more fair (than the standard mass start) if a stadium has restrictions on space at the start, but if not, the standard start is more fair."

Sten Fjeldheim, Nordic coach at the University of Northern Michigan and a member of the committee, has seen the pyramid used in World Cup a few times and is a stronger proponent. He said he thinks the pyramid will work well and will allow the committee to have the championships in more different venues.

No matter who hosts, with this new option, fewer skiers should be caught in a tight squeeze.

In previous Nordic events, skiers have had to jockey for position once the course narrows to two lanes. Administrators hope the new pyramid start will lessen that congestion.