Vancouver bobsleigh track, out of corner 13, CRASH!
Today I’ve had the pleasure of a new experience, for me. What my collegues had already had, and not me: a crash with my bobsleigh, down the track.
It was on the second run of the day, when you are more confident, after having passed the first without (say) any problem. They know that corner 13 here is very tough, because it’s the fastest point of the track (145km/h) and 13 is very tight; no error is admitted there, and one error we made.
Being the brakeman, you don’t really understand well what is happening, until your helmet hits the wall and you can hear a bad noise.
We haven’t any big problem apart from:
- Our Sled broken on the right-back part
- My helmet broken
- My shoulder’s skin burnt in a 5 centimeters area
- Fabrizio’s rib… he doesn’t know what…
The most important thing, they say, is not to think about it and go down as soon as possible, to leave phantoms out of your head 
Bobsled individual push tests: 7.47, that’s good
Very intersting day, yesterday; for the first time I could challenge myself in bobsled individual tests.
Being a guy who comes from Decathlon and is used to be all by himself during a two-days-race, I was a little bit sick of not having any individual measurement of my performances.
Yesterday the men bobsled Italian team was in Cesana Pariol and we did a 2-pushes test with a 130kgs sled down the indoor track.
I had a very positive feedback, improving my last (that was October) best by 24 cents of a second; I set 7.47 and my best was 7.71. That is good news because I feel I am on the right track to gain, one day, a place on Italy-1.
Today we are traveling to Koenigssee for the next World Cup race (Jan 10th-11th)
If nobody brakes your bob…
One of the most asked questions, since when I started practicing bob is: “.. and what does it happen if nobody brakes your bob after the finish line? Are you gonna stop somewhere? Would it be very dangerous?”
Ehi, today I have an answer…. at least for what concerns the Winterberg track.
No, in Winterberg it is NOT SO DANGEROUS, because you have enough track, after the finish line to be able to stop just going uphill, but please beleive me, it would be much better to brake at least when you are still because it would not be funny to go backward at 100 km/h…
Just to recap in a few words, today we had the second training session before the 4 men bob Europe Cup.
In the first run, pushing the bob, three (yes, all the three brakemen) newbies (me included, in a sense) and the youngest one at the brakes, I was the 3rd, just in front of him.
Before starting, we asked him if everything was ok with the brakes and it seemed to be (really) OK… but it wasn’t. Just a couple of meters after the finish line I got up a little bit outside the bob, just to make his life easier while braking; unfortunately he couldn’t find the handles, went through the parking area, and shouted: “Where are the handles?”… too late.
The worst thing would have been to go back downhill, pass again the finish line in the opposite direction and go up 3 or 4 corners backward .
Finally, when we were still, I was able to turn by myself and pull the brake, so we stopped up there, waiting for some men of the track who helped us sliding back to the parking area.
Uhfff… it would have been more dangerous in some other tracks; for the next time I’ll remember to really check if everything is ok and eventually to pull that handle a little bit in advance!
And now I am an Italian Bob Team member!
Today I was in Cesana Pariol, the Torino 2006 Olympic Bobsleigh, Skeleton and Luge track, to perform my first ever Bob experience.
In a few words: imagine yourself sliding on an ice half pipe, going in corners at a more than 130km per hour speed, in a more than 90 degrees slope, for 19 corners in 1400 meters, completed in 57 seconds.
After making this imagination effort, please believe me, change your expectations!
The real thing is: you are in a really small iron box, holding yourself tight to stand up to knocks and direction changings, watching your feet and your pilot’s back, trying to remember where is the last corner… because you must brake after it..
OK. It is something more exciting than that… I just wanted to give an extreme view of my experience… that was really great.
I am sure I will come back here with new details, because I am quickly discovering that Bob is not just running and going fast but it is hard work as well.
