Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270199
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bob Zeller
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BODINE'S BOBSLED NEEDS A NOSE JOB
The new American-made "Bo-Dyn" bobsled has been disqualified on a "minor technicality" from making its racing debut in the final World Cup competition this weekend at Lillehammer, Norway, the U.S. Bobsled Federation announced Friday."When the team really started turning it on a few days ago and running fast, that's when the problems developed," said Geoff Bodine, the NASCAR Winston Cup star who funded the project.
"We were fast, real fast," said Bob Cuneo of Chassis Dynamics, a Connecticut race car shop that Bodine hired to build the two-man sled.
Matt Roy, U.S. bobsled federation executive director, said in a statement: "We must have been good. I've never seen the International Rules Committee disqualify a slow sled."
Bodine, in a telephone interview Friday, said the sled was disqualified "because of the shape of the body - the nose in particular."
"The rules committee went over the whole sled - front to back to top to bottom - and couldn't find anything else, so they disqualified us for that," Bodine said.
Bodine said body style of the Bo-Dyn sled had been used before. And last summer, the rules committee had said the style was still legal, he said. At Lillehammer, committee members told the U.S. team they had changed their minds.
"I'm not shocked," Bodine said. "We expected some problems. We can change the body, that's no problem. The main thing is that the chassis wasn't outlawed. That's where the most amount of work and development has been done.
"All this has done for myself and everyone in the project is just lit our fire. We're more determined than ever to make this project work."
Bodine said bobsled team members Brian Shimer and Bruce Roselli had been using the sled for a week and a half in Lillehammer.
"We tried to get the rules committee to inspect the sled last weekend, but they wouldn't do it," Bodine said. "So we continued testing. And Shimer was really enjoying it. All of sudden, they went fast. There was nobody faster than we were. And the committee said, `We're going to inspect the sled now.' We feel like it had a little bit to do with the governing body. Let's face it, they're Europeans. And they want to see Europe win. They don't like Americans being in that position."
Shimer and the other American team members will compete this weekend in the two-man and four-man events, but they will have to use their own sleds.
Shimer is in the thick of the World Cup battle and hopes to become the first U.S. driver in three decades to win the overall points championship.