Doug Mills / New York Times News ServiceWorld Cup skier Ilka Stuhec and her mother, Darja Crnko, a ski technician, share a laugh at the alpine world championships in Colorado. Crnko is the only female ski tech at worlds.

VAIL, Colo. — When skier Ilka Stuhec has a bad race on the World Cup circuit, sometimes her first instinct is to call her mother back in Slovenia to cry over the phone.

Instead, she walks to a fusty, claustrophobic basement, trailer or hovel where the World Cup ski technicians are sequestered late into the night tuning skis for the world’s best racers.

There Stuhec will find her mother, Darja Crnko, bent over her daughter’s skis, painstakingly waxing, brushing and scraping them — often for five to seven hours a day.

Crnko is the only woman at ski racing’s elite level working as a technician — a secretive, mysterious but imperative job that can determine who finishes first or 30th in a sport in which races are routinely decided by a hundredth of a second.

Crnko, whose father taught her to tune and prepare skis, said she brought something different to the craft.

“Ski tuning is a man’s world,” Crnko said, smiling. “But I bring a woman’s touch. It’s in my hands, like growing flowers.”

Stuhec, who finished 20th in the women’s downhill Friday at the Alpine World Ski Championships, agreed.

“My mom’s skis are always among the best,” she said. “We’re usually one of the fastest in the flat sections where ski prep matters the most.

“But I admit, when we first started doing this, we got some funny looks.”

The job is known as a ski tech, and it is largely thankless and grimy. The workspace resembles a transients’ encampment with dozens of plywood cubicles hastily assembled in a hotel basement, parking lot or unused warehouse. The ski techs travel week to week with the World Cup circuit, from Central Europe to Scandinavia to North America, setting up shop wherever there is space. The usual work hours are 5 p.m. to midnight. The typical ski tech is fueled by loud music, pizza, Red Bull, beer and chewing tobacco.

On race and training days, the techs also rise before the sun to give the precious skis a final coat of wax and loving care. The work stations are side by side, but they are private, windowless booths with doors that lock. Each tech believes he or she has a secret formula of sophisticated fluorocarbon waxes and pricey powders that will make their skiers’ skis just a little bit faster than the competition’s.

Into this world, Crnko made her first inroads in 2009. Or, as she said last week at the Slovenia team’s hotel here: “That’s when being a mother became my other job.”

Stuhec, whose parents are divorced, grew up near a ski resort in Maribor, Slovenia. She was a three-time world junior champion and advanced to the national ski team as a teen. Her mother was a former racer and coach, and her father, Igor Stuhec, is a construction engineer. But about eight years ago, Stuhec, now 24, had the first of several devastating injuries to her right knee, which has been operated on five times.

By 2009, Stuhec was no longer under the purview of the Slovenia ski team and largely making a comeback on her own. Crnko, 52, took over as her daughter’s coach, physical therapist, ski tech, driver and travel agent.

“She came to my rescue,” Stuhec said. “We just did everything together. And we still do.”

Crnko said the established technicians and coaches treated her warily at first. But then in one of Stuhec’s first big races that year, she finished in the top 10. Moreover, in the flat sections of the course, Stuhec’s time was among the best.

“That opened all the doors,” said Crnko, who has an engineering degree. “I was a woman, but I obviously knew what I was doing.”

When Crnko arrived at her work station in the ski tech village at the world championships one day last week, the other ski techs greeted her arrival by bellowing: “Hello, Mommy!”

Crnko, a soft-spoken woman with an easy smile, reminded the crew that since Ilka’s sister and only sibling has had a child, she is now a grandmother.

The techs for other racers came by Crnko’s booth regularly to compare notes or discuss the all-important weather details (without sharing their most vital secrets).

“Darja is a strong, hard-working woman, and she’s earned the respect of all the other techs,” said Hilaire Paleni, who oversees the women’s World Cup for ski maker Rossignol, which sponsors Stuhec. “They spend so much time together there is no fooling the group.”

Crnko has continued to coach her daughter, who has rejoined the Slovene team, and helps her in almost daily workouts to keep her right knee healthy. The two share a room on the road, but they do not usually eat meals together since Crnko is tuning skis throughout the evening. Stuhec eats with teammates and goes to bed early so she can be ready for early-morning training or racing.

Crnko tiptoes into their hotel room late at night and customarily returns to her ski-tech workplace before her daughter awakens.

“It is tiring,” Crnko said. “I could use more sleep, but now is not the time. Ilka needs me. I sleep in the summer.”

Most days, they meet on the mountain, where Crnko also helps dispense advice on technique and race tactics.

“It’s not always easy, because she has to tell me what I’m doing wrong,” Stuhec said. “There will be days after a race when she’s saying, ‘What were you doing? What were you thinking?’

“And sometimes I’ll talk back to her, just kind of say quickly, ‘I know, I know, Mom.’ If it was a regular coach, I’m sure I would say something like, ‘I’ll do better next time.’”

Crnko said: “I don’t like explaining her mistakes. It would be easier to just be her mom.”

But Stuhec said no spat ever lasts for long.

“We’re always over it in five minutes,” she said. “It has made us better. We’re best friends.”

Stuhec has made 80 World Cup starts and was looking forward to this month’s world championships after finishing 10th in the downhill and 13th in the super-G at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. But in addition to the 20th place in the downhill, Stuhec was 17th in the super-G last week.

“I’m disappointed in my performances so far,” she said.

Crnko, who was sitting next to her daughter, leaned over and put an arm on her shoulder.

“There are other races ahead,” she said softly.

Stuhec raced in Monday’s super combined, finishing seventh, and will race in Thursday’s giant slalom. Her chief goal, if a bit in the future, is to get back to the Winter Olympics in 2018.

Will her mother be there tuning her skis if she makes it?

“I don’t know,” Crnko said. “I said I’d only do this for a year.”

Ilka Stuhec turned to smile at her mother.

“You said that six years ago,” she said, laughing.

“I did,” said Crnko, who began to laugh as well. “I did.”