Originally Posted by Mikey
First off i'd say that the Tabla Rasa deserves more of a place in the innovation hall of fame than the Lotus 138. I might be wrong on this but the Tabla had a total carbon construction, whereas the Lotus is still essentially a wood core - all be it a light one.
Furthermore, the first Lotus 138 style ski i.e. reverse camber, low profile tip/tail, with very slight conventional sidecut in centre of the ski was designed by Trevor Hiatt, a Jackson local and member of the Head International Team. Trevor has been riding various incarnations of this ski for over 2 yrs now. In fact i remember seeing a photo on this very site of the skis last year in Lenas - with a Monster 103 topsheet. Originally they were build by the Igneous guys, and you'll still occasionally see Adam rocking some of the early protos in Jackson.
Word is that Trevor took these to the International R&D meeting at Whisler last year, and Jon Olssen loved them so much he told Head to hold off on his new pro model and build these instead. Will have to wait and see if anything comes of that.
At the end of the day though what does it matter. Choice is a great thing, and aside from scumbags like Goode, i'm all for people taking existing designs and trying to make them better.