If you don’t know how to engage a ski at the top of the turn, and don’t care to know, you might as well stop reading about the Nordica Dobermann Spitfire 76 RB right now. It has the cleanest, highest, earliest connection to the next turn in a category in which this particular trait is prized. But if you’re still lingering on the downhill edge when you should already be tilting in the other direction, you’ll miss the moment. Don’t worry if you do, for the Spitfire 76 will find the edge as soon as you give it a chance. But part of what makes this review an unblushing rave will pass you by.

If you’re hooked on the G’s generated in a short turn, you’ll feel right at home on this cobra-quick stick. It has the reflexes of a fencer, moving unerringly into the center of the arc where it ignites and, as it says in its name, fires the skier across the fall line. The Dobermann Spitfire 76 RB has all the qualities a strong skier expects in a race ski, just de-tuned a red hair so it’s more fun for freeskiing. Jim Schaffner from Start Haus, a big man with an engrained race technique for which the term “powerful” seems inadequate, wrote of the Spitfire 76, “I felt like I could do anything on this ski. It’s fun, lively, snappy, with a dash of the Dobermann race heritage feel.”

The better you are as a skier, the more you’ll appreciate the Spitfire 76.  It’s both reason and reward for why you bothered to get good in the first place. The more speed you run through its fully loaded, race-caliber construction, the more accurate and active it becomes. Nordica’s history as a ski maker isn’t long, but during its young life it has already acquired a reputation for quality carving tools. The Spitfire 76 RB is unequivocally better than all its ancestry.

Corty Lawrence, like Schaffner well above average in both size and talent, was wowed by the Spitfire 76, despite having to ski it in murky, flat light. “Quick, stable, predictable, well-balanced ski,” lauds Lawrence. “Symmetrical fore and aft, energetic rebound without being too aggressive. Rewarding. Still needs a steady hand at the helm,” cautions the former co-owner of Footloose, who contributed this coda on his test card:

“As long as you can feel the tip and tail

This ski works for skiing by Braille!”

I can’t write about the Nordica Spitfire 76 without flashing on images of Mike Rogan, America’s best ski instructor and the only 7-time US Demo Team member, on a pair of these skis. Whenever I see a picture of a skier in perfect position, every angle as immaculate and as symmetrical as an M.C. Escher etching, I check to see if it’s Mr. Rogan. Like Roger Federer, his style is both classic and inimitable. None of us will ever be as good as Federer or Rogan, but on the Spitfire 76, at least for a few turns, you can imagine you’re the latter.