because side cut involves proportionately wide tips, a platform for the boot to allow a very narrow waist. A total of 150 pairs were produced. In 1990 Volkl released their metal "Explosiv" with a 10mm sidecut and 28m radius. Wider turns on racing courses skis with 32m radius – a third below consumer skis. K2 make a 10mm sidecut race ski, which caught on in the retail market - skiers learned to edge a bit more, a loved the speed and ease of turning. Volant release a 12mm cut ski in 1992, followed by Dynastar, and K2. Elan engineers Jurij Franko and Pavel Skofic experimentally adjusted sidecut and developed a physical model—desired radius, speed, forces and lean one could generate, and bend the ski to solve for this combination. By 1991 they released a ski with a sidecut that was, at 22.25 mm, three times that of previous standard for slalom skis and a tight, 15–m turning radius. It took eight of the top ten places in its initial racing, allowing skiers to stand with a stronger straighter leg and make the desired carve. In the US, ski instructors found that students could easily make parallel turns that would otherwise take considerable practice and training. The company put the ski on the market in 1993 as the Elan SCX. Kneissl, struggling in bankruptcy released a radical 19–mm sidecut ski for a radius of 14 m. In tests, Elan found that its skis substantially boosted skier capability. Engineers experimented and were funded at Atomic, Blizzard and others. With cuts of 20 mm, short skis were a necessity to avoid unnecessarily heavy tips and tails. Increasing widths held snow contact constant as lengths and turn radius plummeted. The necessary tip and tail mass as well as carved edge contact made 180cm skis as stable as straight skis 20% longer. Design challenges such as engineering increased stiffness to keep wide tips from bending over bumps and in deeps continued to be met as Wright's law took over ski design. Some (Atomic, Fischer and Head) leaped at the new designs while others resisted (Rossignol/Dynastar, K2) or took other directions (Salomon with their incredibly successful cap or “monocoque” design). The expense of competing against the dual innovations of the new carving skis and radical manufacturing innovation such as the cap, and investment in new presses to handle the width of carving skis saw several companies