Don't think about the girls on either side of you, Heather Doolittle tells herself. Don't think about how close their snowboards come to crossing yours in the next turn, or how close her arm came to glancing off your goggles when you caught air on that last jump.

Keep singing, Doolittle tells herself. Stay calm, follow the line you plotted during practice, and listen to the Avril Lavigne song in your head. Have fun, she tells herself. Wasn't it Avril who sang "Why you have to go and make things so complicated?" Good advice for anyone in the middle of a boardercross race.

"My mind is off the competition. I'm listening to music," Doolittle, a Belgrade native and Carrabassett Valley Academy senior, said. "It's exhilarating."

The soundtrack changes from race to race, Lavigne was Doolittle's choice last weekend, but the approach is always the same. Still a newcomer to boardercross, Doolittle quickly realized the sport suits her. After just a handful of boardercross races, Doolittle earned an invitation to the World Cup races. Making her World Cup debut at Lake Placid, N.Y., last week, Doolittle finished 28th on Thursday and 23rd on Sunday.

"If you look at what she got out of the events, she did quite good," said Chris Clark, Doolittle's coach.

Doolittle started attending CVA last year as a halfpipe competitor. The 17-year old Doolittle took part in her first boardercross race on Jan. 26 at Copper Mountain, Colo., after some prodding from Clark, CVA's snowboard program manager. Riding tentatively, Doolittle placed 12th.

"I took it really relaxed," she said. "I kind of checked my speed a lot and rode about five feet behind the other girls."

At her second boardercross race, at Mt. Bachelor, Ore. on Feb. 9, Doolittle placed third.

"I made the podium and I realized, I have some ability here," Doolittle said.

"In each event this year she has gained greater confidence," Clark said. "This confidence, combined with her riding style and level headedness makes her a natural fit for snowboardcross."

With strong races at Spirit Mountain, Minn. and Tamarack, Idaho on the United States Snowboard Association Chevrolet Revolution Tour, Doolittle earned enough points to get an invitation to the World Cup. Doolittle is currently ranked third in points for Junior Worlds.

"She's pretty fearless," Clark said. "Growing up at Sugarloaf, riding on the steeps and rock hard snow, she's not afraid to hit the bigger sized jumps."

Doolittle took up riding when she was 6 years old.

After doing well in small halfpipe competitions at Sunday River and Sugarloaf, Doolittle decided to the take the sport more seriously, enrolling part-time at CVA two years ago. After spending the fall at Messalonskee High School, Doolittle heads to CVA for the winter before returning to Messalonskee for the spring.

"I've always gone off jumps and gone big. I never really liked the idea of racing until recently," Doolittle said. "I still love the halfpipe, but I'm not into competing."

CVA alum Seth Wescott won the inaugural boardercross Olympic gold medal last year in Torino, Italy, and that has helped increase the sports popularity and visibility. Still, boardercross courses are typically built just before a competition. The only real way to train is to ride.

"There's a lot of kids groomed for it, who are not scared to go fast," Clark said. "It's tough to train for."

"You go the day before a race and you look at the course," Doolittle said. "You practice a little bit and you go with it."

At Messalonskee, Doolittle is a member of the soccer and lacrosse teams. It helped that her first boardercross race wasn't her introduction to competition, Doolittle said.

"A lot of kids who snowboard have never learned how to compete. So they don't know how to deal with it," she said.

On Saturday, Doolittle will continue on the World Cup circuit with a race at Stoneham, Quebec. She was recently accepted to the University of Vermont, and is waiting to hear from Middlebury, Dartmouth and Williams.

After she decides on a college, Doolittle has to decide whether or not to defer admission for a year while she continues her boardercross career. A tough decision, but if she approaches it the same way she approaches a race, Doolittle will be fine. Ignore the chaos around you. Have fun.

"You just need to plan a course and just take it," Doolittle said.