Courtesy Photo | Specialist Patrick Furman, an infantry Soldier from the New York Army National Guard's...... read more read more
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LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - Twenty members of the New York Army National Guard will serve as brakemen for NASCAR drivers and drag racer drivers from the National Hot Rod Association on the Olympic Regional Development Authority bobsled track on Mount Van Hovenberg Jan. 9 and 10 during the 5th Annual Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge race.
For the 4th year New York Army National Guard Soldiers will join professional racing drivers in the 5th Annual Lucas Oil Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge Presented by Whelen Engineering. The Army National Guard Soldiers will serve as brakemen for the race car drivers who will guide the high-speed sleds down the tracks. The New York Army National Guard Recruiting Command will also have replicas of the NASCAR Army National Guard Car, #88 and an Indy car simulator, on hand for visitors to see. A special Army National Guard bobsled, decorated to look like the #88 car will be part of the racing.
"As a son of a WWII veteran and a former Army National Guardsmen, I thought we needed some brave people to ride with these drivers and there's no braver folks than our men and women in the U.S. military," Geoff Bodine said during the 2009 race.
In 2006, Bodine approached U.S Bobsled National Team Coach Bill Tavares, who is also a 26-year veteran of the Army National Guard, about bringing the Guard into the nationally televised event.
"I approached the unit in nearby Saranac Lake to see if I could get them to come over," Tavares said. From there, the request was routed through Regionalal recruiters and the Guard was officially on board."
In the first year, Iraq veterans and their families were invited to the event. In other years National Guard recruits and combat veterans have served as brakemen, helping to launch and stop the sleds.
"For the participants, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and the coverage the Guard receives is phenomenal...international," said Major David Palmeri, the organizer of the National Guard's 2009 effort.
Named for organizer Geoff Bodine, the winner of the 1986 Indy 500, the Bodine Bobsled Challenge takes race car drivers out of their normal surroundings and puts them in a bobsled speeding down the three-quarter mile, 16-turn Mount Van Hoevenberg track, site of the 2000 Winter Goodwill Games as well as the 2003 and 2009 World Bobsled Championships.
While the goal for any race car driver is to win, the mission of the event is to create awareness and greater funding for the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project, Inc. Bodine, joined forces with auto racing designer Bob Cuneo of Chassis Dynamics in Oxford, Conn. to create made-in-America bobsleds for the United States men's and women's national teams.
Since 2002, the Bo-Dyn effort has produced one Olympic gold medal (Jill Bakken), two silver medals (Todd Hays and Shauna Rohbock) and a bronze (Brian Shimer). Additionally, U.S. team member Steve Holcomb ended a 50 year world championship drought when he drove his four-man Bo-Dyn sled to the world title in Lake Placid last February.
The men's and women's squads have claimed numerous World Cup medals this season - five gold among them - in the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. With the help of Bo-Dyn technology, the team is now poised to end a 62-year gold medal drought in the Winter Olympics
| Date Taken: | 01.05.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 01.05.2010 14:26 |
| Story ID: | 43464 |
| Location: | LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 318 |
| Downloads: | 248 |
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