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MOORESVILLE Think Olympic bobsledding, and Lake Placid, N.Y., or the mountains of Italy, Switzerland and Austria might come to mind.
But Mooresville?
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.
Pro bicyclists from across the country also test at A2 Wind Tunnel to get a similar edge on the competition. And now the country's best bobsledders, who on Wednesday included four 2009 world champion men's competitors and 2006 Olympic silver medalists Shauna Rohbock and Valerie Fleming.
“It's like NASCAR,” men's champion bobsledder Steve Holcomb said between tests with teammate Curt Tomasevicz. “You're always looking for a little edge. Shave a little here, shave a little there. Every little thousandths of a second counts.”
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.
Bo-Dyn's goal: Research and develop bobsled technology to help U.S. athletes win gold medals.
Germany, which dominated the sport for decades, spends $3.8million a year on bobsled research and development, Cuneo said, while U.S. bobsledding is lucky to reach $200,000 a year, “including traveling.”
But the United States has ascended in the sport, and Cuneo said motorsports technology has played a crucial role.
“You think they're mad at us?” Cuneo quipped of his German counterparts now that U.S. men's bobsledders are world champions and the United States expects nothing less than men's and women's gold in Vancouver.
Cuneo, whose company builds the U.S. team's sleds, said he turns to friends in motorsports who are quick at turning around ideas, including Lewis Duncan, a leading aerodynamist who interpreted computer readings at A2 on Wednesday. “He's here because he's my friend,” Cuneo said.
As a boy, Cuneo watched the Olympics and dreamed of being on stage to accept a medal. When U.S. bobsledders receive their medals, it's like he's there, too, he said.
