We’re back from Lake Placid with tales of frigid conditions, spectacular views, unbridled generosity and a ton of fun. Shopgirl signed up for this trek. Her insights and observations made this trip even more interesting than those of the previous two years.

Wednesday night, I was listening to NASCAR radio courtesy of Vicki’s Christmas present to me; a Sirius satellite radio. This programming is all new to me. I heard the host refer to one of his colleagues heading to “the great white north”. That was my cue to call in and ask why I hadn’t heard about the Bobsled Challenge.

I believe the program was Sirius Speedway with Dave Moody, but I could be wrong. The host was trying to insult a personality I later came to know as Tim Packman. Packman said that he would be getting to ride in a bobsled with Ron Hornaday. That set the host off on a tirade of insults and questions to perhaps intimidate Packman of the forthcoming event.

They put me on the air and asked what I’d like to talk about. I mentioned the Bobsled Challenge but really didn’t get to say a whole lot during that segment. Packman was confronted again and again. I offered to be his brakeman in the Press Race. The host said, “Walter, what do you need brakes for?” He inferred that I was a wuss. I told him, “to keep from running out of the end of the chute.” I was dumped out of the feed and the host continued to berate Tim for being crazy enough to ride with Hornaday. I thought it was crazier for him to be in a studio with a lunatic host like that.

Vicki got up at an hour that some people are just turning in to catch her first-out flight from Fort Lauderdale. She woke me with a phone call before she left home. It was cold in Riverhead; 10F with the wind blowing to a well below zero wind-chill.

New York traffic is crazy. I left for JFK an hour before her flight would leave FLL. I got to the airport property about fifteen minutes after Shopgirl’s scheduled departure. Waiting at the terminal for two and a half hours isn’t my idea of fun but I feel that beats sitting in traffic for three.

The trip up to the Olympic Sports Complex took less time that it did for Vicki to get from her house to the door of my car. I actually felt like it took longer to get to terminal six from parking area four than it did from there to exit thirty off of I-87. As we progressed north, the air and the traffic thinned and the temperature dropped.

Shopgirl is a flatlander. She was born and raised in Ohio and has lived in Florida for seven years. As we cruised past the Catskills and ascended into the Adirondacks, she was awestruck with the beauty of the mountains. As I negotiated NY73, which is quite a winding road, Vicki was amazed by the sheer walls of ice, snow covered lakes and people toiling in their outdoor activities.

We pulled into the OSC at about three o’clock. I left Shopgirl in the car while I grabbed our Press Credentials from the ORDA person at the ticket booth. ORDA is the Olympic Regional Development Authority. I’d remembered the first two events where there wasn’t exactly a ton of media people present. The bundle of laminates that had been prepared for this event was enormous. I later told Phil Kurze that somebody had been doing their job well.

We drove up by the starting areas and ran into Don & Jay Barker and Denis Morgan. Then we parked down by the lower exit dock. It is cold; -6F and it’s a little windy. The cold however was quickly broken by the warmth of all of those excited faces. Guys who jumped on an airplane in North Carolina a few hours ago were jumping out of bobsleds and trying to figure out how many more runs they could get in on the day.

All of the competitors that had been scheduled to be there had arrived except for Donny Lia and Todd Bodine. Lia was stuck in airport hell somewhere. I heard that Bodine was doing a sponsor appearance in Florida. The rest of the NHRA and NASCAR guys got all of their training runs in from the #4 start hut and fulfilled their prerequisites for starting at the higher point on the hill Friday.

Vicki came to the great white north prepared for a day at the beach. Although my mother had lent her a light coat, gloves, hat and a scarf, she was not prepared for the bitter cold that the upper Adirondack region had offered. Phil Kurze came to the rescue. He gave Shopgirl one of Columbia Sportswear’s finest winter coats.

Columbia Sportswear has been a tremendous sponsor and ardent supporter of the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project since the first event. Their products have kept all of the competitors warm at every turn. Phil went out of his way to provide the one-of-a-kind coat I wear up there last year. It is just amazing how far this company’s technology has come to provide such lightweight apparel that keeps everyone so toasty and dry.

With two competitors remaining to take their practice runs, we dashed off to the Crowne Plaza. This hotel is spectacular. It is the same place that had kids running up and down the hallways and playing with the elevators for hours when I stayed there two years ago. This year, no kids and we all enjoyed everything this place had to offer.

One thing the Crowne Plaza does not offer is smoking rooms. It’s a good thing they have balconies. I don’t know how many people were smoking on them but the evidence was quite clear. The drifts of snow below the rear balconies were speckled with butts. This was despite the ever-accumulating snow that buried all but the most recent deposits throughout most of the weekend.

There was a reception at the Olympic Center scheduled for 7pm. I took Vicki to the downtown area so we could have an early dinner and get to sleep. It had been a very long day.

Downtown Lake Placid is a very trendy place. The restaurants there appeal to a more exclusive clientele than those in the racing heartland. One won’t find a McAnything. The whole area has a very European feel to it. We ate at a Steak and Seafood place where they have there own award winning beers. The food was very good.

I stopped at the closest thing to a national franchise on the way back to the hotel. I figured we could get really good hot chocolate at Ben & Jerry’s. I thought they better be good at about three bucks a piece. It’s probably because they make them with a cappuccino machine. When we opened them in our room they were half empty…priceless.

Vicki flipped back and forth between Rio Bravo and Raging Bull on the tube while I started writing this mess. Shopgirl felt the room was too warm…no problem…I turned off the heat and opened the patio door. By 4am the bathroom was at the perfect temperature to start an ice skating rink. At least it was comfortable.

I slept well until that time. Then I watched the end of the Guns of Navarone. Once that was over I checked out the Weather Channel. Hey it’s warm! 9F!

At 5am I went downstairs to check on breakfast. Continental breakfast was about eight bucks, but why would one have a continental breakfast when they could get eggs cooked to order and the complete hot and cold buffet for two dollars more? These are questions that keep me awake at night but at 5am, I was ready to eat.

Unfortunately, breakfast didn’t start until 7am. As there are only liquid vending machines of a brand that I do not even consume in this place, I had a few choices.

First, I could get bundled up and find someplace that was open at five in the morning, which didn’t seem too likely.

Secondly, I could dash out into the snow and kill an animal, start a fire and roast my spoils.

Thirdly, I could try cannibalism which at the time didn’t seem like too bad of an option as that wouldn’t require venturing out into the cold and a couple of the hotel’s staff members looked like they’d be easy pickings.

Fourth, I could go back to our room, write about being hungry and maybe when I was done the hunger would pass or the breakfast room would be open.

I chose the latter. Now it’s 6:18am and I’m even hungrier because I have been writing about being hungry for over an hour. At 6:22am I start looking for a knife that isn’t plastic because I want to try option three. What the heck? Could I microwave someone’s arm before the breakfast room opened? Probably not.

It’s 6:27am and it’s still 9F. Now the wind-chill factor is down to -5F. I think this is why so many people drink up here.

When we got to Mt. Hoevenberg on Friday morning, there were a number of youths who were practicing Luge. These youths are candidates to be future Olympians. It was great to get a chance to watch them and then listen to their coach instruct them on what they needed to do to improve.

Practice resumed for those who had been there on Thursday. Lia had to make two practice runs from start #4 before the venue staff would allow him to slide from start #3. Lia looked good in both of his runs from the lower level and his first attempt from start #3 would have been fast enough to be runner-up in the second round of practice from that level.

One of the cool things to watch was the announcer’s race. Jeff Hammond, Ray Dunlap, Tim Packman, Paul Bartholomew and ringer Mike DiPasquale dueled to see who would be the fastest mouth on ice. Dunlap was the only “announcer” with previous experience. Ray had piloted bobsleds through the training portions of both previous Bo-Dyn events and promptly posted the slowest time.

DiPasquale was not really one of the announcers. “Someone up top” included him in this race complete with U.S. team member, Grayson Fertig, on brakes. Mike and Grayson had a really good run but it was only second best.

The one announcer who really adapted well to bobsledding was Jeff Hammond. Jeff’s winning run was eight tenths of a second faster than the ringer. It also backed up his blazing fast first practice run of the day.

Actually on Thursday afternoon a few of us heard a line made famous on Trackside Live. Not only was Jeff a natural pilot, he was an eager and desired brakeman for many who were practicing. As he ascended the mountain with the bobsleds in the back of a truck the radios would chirp, “Where’s Hammond?”

After qualifying, we headed off to the Press Center where we posted the results of the day’s efforts. Stephanie Ryan brought over a colorful document. It turned out that was the parking permit I would need to get Goldy through the gates on Saturday.

I brought the tuxedo cup to the banquet and auction. We were seated with Edward Flink. Too bad I don’t drink. His law firm paid for cocktail hour. Ed is fond of saying, “Don’t drink and drive…but if you do, call me.”

One of the most thoughtful things that were donated for the auction was given by 2007 Whelen Southern Modified Tour champion driver, L.W. Miller. He offered up a quarter-panel on his car for the Made in America Whelen 300 at Martinsville. It also turned out to be an item that garnered some of the most feverish bidding.

The winning bid went to Forrest Lucas of Lucas Oil. I think it went for $2600. It probably would have gone for twice that if Eddie Partridge were around. The amount pales in comparison to what Forrest recently doled out. The price tag was in excess of one hundred million dollars for the naming rights of the new Lucas Oil stadium in Indianapolis.

The auction raised $36,000. A number of the items were gobbled up by the competitors. Ray Dunlap did an outstanding job as the auctioneer. Phil Kurze also presented Boris Said with the 2007 President’s Award for Distinguished Service. Boris’s appreciation of the National Guard and his pleasure in defeating Europeans was quite evident in his acceptance.

The 50/50 was cool. The winner took down $817.50. I counted it twice. I thought I’d win something at the live auction but by the time I gained that financial windfall, only the really expensive items were up for bid. For all of the money that was raised, the entertainment value of the auction was worth the price of admission.

I did pickup one of Denis Morgan’s photo CDs at the silent auction. For those of you memorabilia hounds who bug drivers to sign diecast replicas and try to reap the rewards on eBay, a bunch great autographed diecasts, including some from Kevin Harvick, complete with certificates of authenticity sold for fifty dollars or less. Some of the Dale, Jr. Budweiser items met the gavel well under value as well. Well, maybe next time.

It was too damn hot Saturday morning. We’ve got to do something about this global warming [crap] because it’s already 13F. Pass the tanning butter.

Ray Dunlap may be a great auctioneer but he is not the best snowmobile stunt driver. He posed for a picture with the Yamaha rep and Bob Cuneo. Bob was the winning bidder on a brand new Yamaha snowmobile at the auction Friday night.

Dunlap practiced some donuts on the sled. He wanted to look good on the piece he would do to go to break on SPEED. Suddenly, Dunlap was thrown and the snowmobile kept going without him. Ray got up and ran to stop the machine from crashing into one of the ORDA vans. It was a great save but Dunlap was a little worse for the wear afterwards. In his words “I broke my (three letter expletive referring to his posterior deleted)”.

Whiteface Mountain is a majestic backdrop from the Olympic Sports Complex. Whiteface is where the Alpine events were held for the Olympic Games. The OSC is where most of the Nordic events are held.

A really cool addition this year was two widescreen televisions at the finish. Fans could watch the competitors all of the way down the track before the racers emerged in front of them. The feed from the event was displayed on the screens and the spectators really enjoyed it.

There was a young lady collecting autographs on pictures at the exit dock. Christine Lamacchia is a part of the bobsledding community. Her husband has been a bobsledder for thirty years and she works with the Lake Placid Track Officials Association.

Christine’s younger brother, Christian Arruda, has stomach cancer. She was collecting autographs from the competitors to raise his spirits. Enter Jeff Hammond.

When Jeff heard about her efforts, he asked Lamacchia to get Christian on the phone. Hammond stayed on the line with the young man for several minutes and gave him words of encouragement. It was a great gesture and at times one might wonder how these TV people have time to do anything when there is a broadcast going on.

There was a really great crowd for the event. Their applauses were muffled by the gloves they were wearing. The size and the enthusiasm of the spectator gallery swelled as the day went on.

Todd Bodine took off from start #4 on a skeleton. It appeared to be a very violent slide. Todd stayed belly-down and actually demonstrated good form for one with such little experience.

Later Todd Bodine made an announcement. Todd will be starting a project to raise funds to provide better equipment and exposure for the U.S. Skeleton team.

Phil Kurze once again arranged with Bruce Silver from Racing Electronics (R.E.) of Pleasantville, NJ to provide radios for the operations staff and more. R.E.’s Brian Sharp, who we all know from the Whelen Modified Tour, was there and helped out with a whole lot more than radio communications. Let’s just say that some of the TV guys weren’t familiar with what happens to wires when it gets that cold.

Dennis Beardsley of PPG Industries was charged with painting the bobsleds again this year. Ron Hornaday’s sled was painted with a beautiful color called “Is it Green?” Justin Barnes of JB Grafix applied the final touches with graphics on the bobsleds.

Bob Cuneo, Don Barker, Jay Barker and a cast of a few others converted the Challenge bobsleds back to junior runners. This made the sleds a little more forgiving than they were last year. Those guys worked their butts off all weekend. Denis Morgan was on sign detail and that task was considerably more challenging than it sounds. If anyone sees Denis, ask him about drivers using cell phones.

One couple it is great to see each year is Jim Shea, Sr. and his wife Judy. They are active members of the Lake Placid Track Officials Association. Judy is the lady who writes down all of the competitor’s times on the white board at the finish.

Jim was an Olympian who competed in Nordic Skiing at the 1964 winter games at Innsbruck, Austria. Jim’s father Jack was a double-gold medalist in speed skating at the Lake Placid winter games in 1932. The Shea’s son, Jim, Jr., won the gold medal in Skeleton at the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City. They are incredibly down to earth people who welcome everyone to their hometown with open arms.

The Saranac Lake detachment of the New York National Guard provided guardsmen who served as brakemen for all of the competitors. These guardsmen also provided the labor to get the bobsleds on & off of scabboards and in & out of the transfer trucks. It is important to relate that some of the guardsmen were women.

David Palmeri, the guardsman who served as brakeman for Boris Said at last year’s Challenge, told us of his experiences in Iraq. The biggest thing he wanted to get across to people was that things in Iraq are not as bad as the media is making it out to be. He was most excited about explaining how American servicemen and women have been so productive.

David said, “When you bring potable water to community that has never had potable water and security to areas that have lived in fear for years, it makes you proud to be American.” He and his colleagues watched as communities stood and became productive in short order. We are all very proud of these men and women.

The format of the Bobsled Challenge was changed this year. There were two new formats to try to make these races a better show on television. According to one of the folks at SPEED TV, they could only fit twenty runs into a two hour broadcast.

The first race, which will be broadcast on SPEED TV on January 20th at 12pm, had all fifteen competitors race in one heat. Following that the fastest five took second runs and the combined times of their two runs determined the finishing order. Then we broke for lunch.

I asked Shopgirl to go down and get some pictures from the awards presentation below curve 18 at the track entrance. I posted the results of race one. She forgot her gloves and returned frozen.

Originally we were told that the fastest five NASCAR competitors in the morning race would return to compete in the second race. L.W. Miller, who finished second overall and Donny Lia, who finished fifth overall and fourth of the NASCAR boys, thought they’d be in the second race. Unfortunately for those of us in our little Ville, there was a programming change and it did not include our Modified guys.

The format for the second race was NHRA vs. NASCAR. The NASCAR competitors who were chosen were Boris Said, Todd Bodine, Ron Hornaday, Randy LaJoie and Johnny Benson. All five NHRA drivers, Morgan Lucas, Jeg Coughlin, Bob Vandergriff, Phil Burkart and J.R. Todd were included in this program.

More than one person was disappointed that three current NASCAR Touring Series champions would sit on the sidelines for the second race. We bit our lips and grinned.

All ten drivers took time trial runs to set fields on either side of a bracket. The fastest drivers on each side of the bracket got a bye on the first elimination round. Then there were single elimination competitions to determine a champion. This race will be shown on Sunday, January 20th on SPEED TV at 2pm eastern.

I spent a week in Lake Placid one day. As Jeff Hammond and Paul Bartholomew taped their opener for the second event, they mentioned that Boris Said won the race last week and that this week the battle would be between the NHRA & NASCAR. I can’t believe this. I’ve been here for nine days? What is my hotel bill going to look like?

In both races, Boris Said came out on top. Morgan Lucas actually drove Said’s bobsled in the final round as his bobsled was reportedly “broken”. Some felt that there might have been funny business and that Lucas was driving Said’s sled to level the playing field. Morgan’s ride in Boris’s sled was the slowest run he had Saturday afternoon.

We all departed for another award presentation. After that was over, Vicki and I returned to the Press Center to post an update and get the final reports. Unfortunately, due to track conditions and the prolonged time it took to conclude the challenge, the Press Race was cancelled.

While I was submitting my post, I became aware of the identity of the Fred Flintstone “Bonehead Move of the Year Award” winner. Jason Christley, who I was surprised to see up at Lake Placid, wanted to know where he could pickup his Fred Flintstone bobble-head doll. Apparently he is not familiar with the Newky awards. These are used plastic drinking cups that are wrapped in aluminum foil.

As promised, if anyone has any problems with Flash races or anything else NASCAR related in the coming year, please forward your questions to jchristley@nascar.com. If one cares to, I won’t mind if a courtesy copy of those questions were sent to me. I will make arrangements for a public presentation of the Bonehead Newky sometime this season. In all fairness to Jason, it was really great to have an official NASCAR presence at the Bodine Bobsled Challenge.

In lieu of the Press Race, media members were offered free rides on the Lake Placid Bobsled Experience on Sunday morning. Denis Morgan, who I was paired with on two previous occasions on the OSC track, joined Shopgirl and I as our four-man sled became a five-man sled. Our weight was massive and contributed to a very fast pass. Vicki screamed like she was on a rollercoaster through the whole ride.

Others lined up behind us at $75 per person to take bobsled rides. For those interested in taking a bobsled ride, visit www.orda.org and click on the Bobsled Rides link. Discounts are available as a part of the “Ultimate Winter Passport”.

We headed back towards JFK and listened to the Giant game on the radio. One person was going to be happy; either my brother in-law or I. The result of the game turned out in my favor.

On the way back, we stopped for a bite to eat. At a drive-thru, I placed an order. We pulled up. “That’ll be $8.58.” I handed the young man at the window a ten. He stared at me and repeated his previous statement two more times; to which I finally responded: I gave you a ten-dollar bill; which is greater…? About thirty seconds later he had an epiphany and figured out the correct answer. He still got the order wrong.

We stayed at the place where you’re supposed to be smarter for staying there. I was envious of Shawn Courchesne for having a big flat-screen TV in hotel room at the UConn bowl game. Our room was equipped with a modest flat screen television. This room was so small that it was probably chosen so that the entrance door to the room could be opened and closed. This place was so small one could lock the door, open a window, set the alarm clock, put clothes away and turn on the TV all while on the throne.

Well we’re done. I’m home and listening to the Morning Drive Replay. I’ll try to see as many of you as possible at Atlantic City in just over a week. Remember, if anyone would like to watch Donny and L.W. on their runs, tune in to SPEED on Sunday, January 20th at Noon eastern. To watch the second race, tune into SPEED on Sunday, January 27th at 2pm eastern.