Even in our dreams, it’s hard to maintain the illusion that we are Marcel Hirscher or Michaela Shiffrin, but the Redster G9 casts such an all-enveloping spell over its pilot that this illusion can be summoned run after run. If you’ve run a GS on planet earth, you know how quickly events unfold at 40mph. The Redster G9 lets you relive the moment, carrying speed that all but necessitates a 130-flex boot to manage it.

That a race-bred GS ski from Atomic can charge the fall line with the unleashed fury of a feral cat on the tail of its prey won’t come as news to anyone who’s ever stepped into an Atomic race ski, but would you believe an Atomic GS that will also dice short turns like a Veg-O-Matic? The ski isn’t naturally intrigued by short turns, but it’s so narrow and quick the pilot can snap off a flush of unfinished slalom turns at will.

The narrow dimensions of the G9’s tip and tail are no accident, but a signal of its intent to not linger at the top of the turn but make speed happen where it can, above the epicenter of the arc. It so happens that a less scalloped sidecut is also more amenable to off-trail travel, but the G9 is as adapted to powder as a Formula One monocoque is to riding sand dunes. It’s also allergic to moguls, but this improbable condition aside, the G9 is in every other way the perfect on-trail ski.

As long as you’re an expert. As one stunned consumer tester attests, “Whoa! Very specialized, powerful. Wants open slopes or a racecourse. On crowded slopes, it’s potential goes untapped.” So get there before the speed control cops are in position and let the big cat feed.