Driving a bobsled provides rare rush

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NASCAR’s Geoff and Todd Bodine were there for moral support, I guess, and Geoff offered this advice: “If you flip, stay in the sled. Don’t try to get out because it’s going to go backwards like you saw with Trickle. In some spots, you’ll get run over and crushed.”

Then it was time to select a helmet. During the Bobsled Challenge most drivers had problems with their shields fogging up, but as soon as I began thinking about that, Fertig chimed in: “Some of the shields aren’t fog proof. You might do better with ski goggles.”

Ski goggles? I’m here to bobsled.

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Undaunted, I selected a blue, full-face helmet and put it on when I noticed there was no face shield. When Todd Bodine said he never used a shield, that was good enough for me.

Face shield? I don’t need no stinking face shield.

I hopped in my blue sled and Todd Bissonette, a local photographer, volunteered to be my brakeman. He’d been down the course dozens of times as a brakeman and has a solid build, so that was reassuring. John Napier, a member of the U.S. team, squatted to give me a few final reassuring tips before noting that my steering was a little off, which meant I’d have to compensate on the way down.

Then come the fateful words from the public address announcer. “The track is clear for John Kekis.”

As we began our descent, my mind suddenly wandered back to a couple of unsettling moments of the recent past. When this track opened for the 2000 Winter Goodwill Games, three of the greatest lugers in history — Georg Hackl, Markus Prock and Jens Mueller — refused to slide because they said the track was too dangerous. And this past November, World Cup champ Martin Annen of Switzerland had a spectacular crash in Trickle Turn during a World Cup race.

Here I come, Trickle.

As we picked up speed, I knew I was driving much more than I should be instead of letting the sled run, and that probably cost us time. As the sled plummeted, reaching a speed of about 50 mph, all I thought about was flipping in that turn. While my head bobbed violently back and forth, I was thinking about my family, trying to imagine what they were about to see and hear.

“The track is clear of John Kekis.”

“Next.”

All of a sudden it was over. It was a virtual blur, but we made it. A cheer broke out up top among my rivals, all of whom would make it down safely, too. Then Bissonette said, “That was awesome. Great drive.”

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I thought, how does he know? Is he saying that because he’s still breathing? If he was acting as a true brakeman, he was ducking low behind me, unable to see anything.

It didn’t take long to find out. He showed me a photo he snapped with a remote camera, and he was sitting straight up. No doubt he probably put on the brakes before the finish line, too. No wonder he finished third when his turn at driving came, and I finished dead last.

Make that last. I’m not dead.

Yet.

I hitched a ride in a two-seat Indy Racing League car in September on the road course at Watkins Glen, and at speeds approaching 170 mph, that was something of a violent encounter, too. But doing a measly 50 — the pros reach speeds near 80 — in a vehicle with no suspension on an incredibly bumpy surface through vertical turns — and being the driver, no less — well, it pretty much ranks No. 1 in my book.

So far.

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