Mooresville NC, the town known as Race City USA for its many motorsports shops was the place to be Wednesday for America’s top men and women bobsledders. They came to gain an edge on the competition, six months before the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, B.C. The four men and two women put on suits and helmets and got into their bobsleds at A2 Wind Tunnel off Mazeppa Road. Gigantic electric fans pulled air at up to 85mph to simulate racing speeds and study how changes in the way the competitors positioned themselves could improve performance. A2’s wind tunnel rises to about 30feet at one end. Its fans sound like a jet engine throttling up. A computer system analyzes whether the bobsledders gained or lost time based on such factors as how they placed themselves in the sled and even which helmet they wear. Wind tunnels are long chambers more commonly associated with stock-car testing. Gary Eaker, former aerodynamics chief at Hendrick Motorsports, opened A2 several years ago beside his larger AeroDYN Wind Tunnel. Mooresville might be the perfect setting for such world-class competitors, as U.S. bobsledding can trace a lot of its success the past two decades to NASCAR veteran Geoff Bodine, 1986 winner of the Daytona 500. Bodine created a in 1992 called the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project after he noticed U.S. Olympic bobsledders competing with European-made sleds. The U.S. team had not won a medal in the sport since the 1956 Games. Bodine started the nonprofit with Connecticut-based Chassis Dynamics, whose president, Robert Cuneo, was Bodine’s engineer when Bodine owned a NASCAR team.(see more at the Charlotte Observer)(7-18-2009)
