Eighteen years ago, on a steep snow slope high in the French Alps, on skis nearly eight feet long, Ross Anderson of Durango set the American speed skiing record that still stands: 154 mph. Across a career that spanned 17 years, he was the lone person of color in an obscure form of skiing in which competitors sheathed in aerodynamic suits ski straight downhill searching for maximum velocity, an experience he likened to jumping out of an airplane.