NASCAR BOBSLED CHALLENGE TO BE TELEVISED THIS WEEKEND

Olympic Fundraiser Puts NASCAR Drivers Behind the Wheel of the Sleds

Many of NASCAR’s drivers shifted gears early this month when they gave up racing stock cars in favor of bobsleds at the Chevrolet Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge in Lake Placid. The event, which raised research and development funds for the US Men’s and Women’s Bobsled teams, will be televised on ESPN2 on Jan. 29 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. and on the Speed Channel on Feb. 4 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and on Feb. 9 from noon to 2 p.m.

The event pitted NASCAR drivers Steve Park, Kevin Lepage, Dick Trickle, Todd Bodine, Boris Said, Stanton Barrett, Joel Kauffman, former driver Brad Noffsinger, Busch Series driver Tim Fedewa and the project’s creator, former NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine, against one another in two races at the Verizon Sports Complex in Lake Placid.

The drivers quickly rose to the challenge of driving on ice instead of asphalt as both races produced different winners, though one driver, Trickle, crashed in turn 18 during both heats of the first race. He later managed to successfully navigate that turn in the second race.

Organizer Geoff Bodine began the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project, which seeks to build high-quality, American-made bobsleds, after watching Americans finish poorly while driving foreign-made sleds in the 1992 Winter Olympics. The project began showing results at the 2002 Winter Olympics when Americans won a gold medal in the women’s bobsledding competition and silver and bronze medals in the men’s four-man competition.

For more information on winter vacation activities in New York State, visit www.iloveny.com or call, toll-free, 1-800 CALL-NYS. I LOVE NEW YORK, Whelen Engineering and Columbia Sportswear joined Chevrolet in the event’s family of sponsors.

For more information on the Chevrolet Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge, visit www.bodynbobsled.com.