Posted on 02/06/2022 10:14:52 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
...Team USA had once again sent a squad of its top sliders to go for gold in the bobsled competitions. Once again, they came home without a whiff of a podium. Clearly, things had to change.
Between 1984 and the mid ‘90s, Bodine had risen through the ranks in NASCAR, and through his career racked up 565 starts, 37 poles and 18 wins. That included a win at the famed Daytona 500. No surprise he thought he could teach the American team a thing or two about winning races.
“He said that he wanted to help us out, so he came out here, rode a sled, and crashed it,” laughs Team USA bobsled head coach, Mike Kohn.
After the crash, Bodine offered to fix the damaged sled, and asked the team where he should order the replacement parts from. Both Kohn and Cuneo remember his outrage at discovering that there wasn’t a manufacturer for bobsled spares in the US.
We all met in my office and early in the meeting the people from the bobsled team said, ‘look, no offense, you’re here trying to help us but you know absolutely nothing about bobsledding. What makes you think that you can help us?’
“And I believe it was Geoff that said, ‘well, you’re absolutely right, we know nothing about bobsledding. But we know a lot about winning, which apparently you don’t.’
“So that was a great start.”
Bodine had a point, though, as it had now been 38 years since Team USA last won an Olympic medal for bobsled.
In fact, they left the 2002 Salt Lake City event with a silver and bronze in the four-man and even claimed a gold in the women’s two-person competition.
It was America’s first gold medal for bobsled in 54 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at jalopnik.com ...
A nice guy, but NEVER EVER ask about the fire that mysteriously burned their sled. He went up like Mt Vesuvius!
I don't think this was the same sled.
They ever figgered out how to make bob-sled pants that won’t spilt up the backside? 8<)
The crash started when then-rookie Kurt Busch, Rob Morgan, and Lyndon Amick were racing three-wide through the tri-oval front straightaway. In the exact moment Bodine moved to get around the outside of the trio, Morgan was turned across Busch’s nose into the side of Amick’s truck, who was at the bottom. Amick’s truck was damaged in the contact, which caused it to veer hard right, pushing Morgan into Bodine who was on the outside. The contact between Morgan’s front right tire and Bodine’s front left tire caused the front of Bodine’s truck to vault upwards over the outside retaining wall, sending his truck into the catch fencing nose first, at a speed of nearly 190 mph (310 km/h).[4]
...As it tumbled, it got hit yet again, this time by Jimmy Kitchens, which ignited the fuel that was spilling out of the tank. Bodine rolled nine times before coming to rest on his roof. The accident was so severe, the announcers, crew members and fans all believed that Bodine had been killed.
As a result of the collision, Bodine suffered fractures in his right wrist, right cheekbone, a vertebra in his back, and his right ankle as well as suffered a concussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Bodine#Bo-Dyn_bobsleds
Very nice story.
Good job on posting excerpts.
Nice informative article.
What is this NASCAR mess on TV now?
I don’t know, I stopped watching a few years ago when they went “woke.” (I hate that ghetto term, initiated by the double-digit IQ crowd)
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