As a kid growing up in post ww11 working (best case) class northern England, I developed a fascination with bobsleighs and in particular the four man event.  The closest bobsleigh track to our modest perch quite likely would have been Switzerland’s Cresta run seen periodically on our (black and white 12 inch screen ‘telly’). Quite often the latest horrendously life threatening crash would be shown as yet another sleigh exited the track en-route to the nearest tree which typically and, oddly even for those less than safety conscious times, was usually very near indeed. 

Frequently British bobsleigh athletes in those days and particularly the drivers, were Royal Air Force fighter pilots. Since military flying was a career to which as a teen I was drawn, perhaps I would muse, I could fly RAF Gloucester Javelins, Hawker Hunters, Vampires and with any luck also get to race bobsleighs. Since massive lower body strength and thus sprinting was not my forte nor likely to be, I figured I would get to be a driver. 

Just prior to leaving high school at the then typical age of 16, I asked our headmaster, who was additionally masquerading and moonlighting as a career counsellor what, assuming good grades, he thought would be my chances of getting into the RAF as a pilot. None whatsoever he replied. He went on to explain that in order to have any chance of being accepted, prior to applying to the RAF I should spend a year furthering my studies at St Bees – a private, however for reasons better known to the Brits as public, residential boarding school for boys. The school was about 50 miles north of our aforementioned and penny-pinching centric north country community. To say said head master was completely out of touch with my then station in life and for that matter that of my 28 class confreres would be to afford him a kindness. An accomplished individual (he had played rugby or rugger if you will – for England no less) and ex-public school himself, he was absent from any understanding of working class realities. Just how he thought I could finance leaving home at sixteen, move to another town miles away, not work, pay tuition fees and study full time for a year I cannot begin to imagine.

I started full-time work locally soon after leaving school (as did most of my 28 classmates) and put flying and bobsledding on the back burner until I could determine a financially viable way to revisit them. The way was called night school plus day release (enlightened UK companies gave one day a week off to attend classes). I became determined from a point in early adolescence to escape the British class system not fancying my chances of marrying into establishment money. Thus targeted, as soon as I had both graduated with a technologist diploma and gained a few years of marketable work experience, I immigrated to Canada. 

As my research had led me to believe, Canada turned out to be an egalitarian nirvana as in virtually anyone could pursue their dreams – no questions asked. This in stark contrast to the common, often skeptical and questioning Brit approach and in the vernacular of my then milieux for example, ‘oo (who) the bloody ‘ell do ya think you are? Another slight was ‘you’re a right bloody dreamer you are’. This verbatim from some of my school mates brainwashed (I somehow missed out) to believe that aspiration and ambition were somehow off limits to the ‘likes of us’. We were expected by many it must be said, of our own peers and by the UK establishment to ‘know our place’. I never did.

I did learn to fly and with pride earned my Canadian private pilot license (single engine land) flying Fleet Canucks – an aircraft about as far removed from an RAF or for that matter RCAF fighter as one could imagine. Later I co-owned an Aeronca Champ – even further removed. Both types being ‘tail draggers’ they demanded ‘proper’ full stall landings just like the very earliest aircraft not to mention the birds – watch one land for a demonstration. The tail dragger undercarriage arrangement (two wheels at the front one at the tail) long pre-dated the now ubiquitous and easier to land tricycle landing gear solution of say a Cessna 172. Unlike the Fleet Canuck, the Champ didn’t even have an electric starter – we had to swing the prop; not for the faint hearted especially when operating solo. (do not try this with the tail not very firmly tied down to an in-ground anchor and checked as such at least three times).

Other than watching the winter Olympics on TV, bobsleighs disappeared even from my wildest if now Canadian dreams until I attended the 1988 Calgary winter Olympics and along with various other events was able to get tickets for bobsleigh. At last I would see them live and up close and hear the unique almost unworldly screeching sounds they generate when screaming along at about 130 kph ideally, but not always, shiny side up. Shiny side down the noise is indescribable and certainly foreboding even for a spectator. I cannot imagine what it must be like inside the sleigh.

Some time after the Olympics and much to my surprise and delight, at Calgary’s Olympic Park I discovered that at modest cost, the public could buy a ride on a four man bob. The 4G inducing bob would travel the entire 15 turns Calgary course and for safety reasons was limited (by a number of rubber drags on the runners according to how fast the ice was at the time) to 80 kph. Oh and just one other ‘minor’ detail – there would be no driver just four passengers! I am not making this up.

Stealing myself for this driverless and thus by definition autonomous bobsleigh adventure I arrived on the appointed day (dark winter evening actually) with an unwitting but good sport business colleague visiting from England. She and I were paired up with two other would be passengers, given a brief classroom orientation session, made to sign waivers, handed correctly fitting full face mask motorcycle helmets and strapped tightly in with, noticeably, very skookum seat belts. Not that it had seats. We sat on the floor. A gentle push and we were off.

All four of us sat bolt upright so we could see ahead as we slowly approached the first turn/steep drop off. Beyond that point we innocents were rag dolls, heads down and wondering if this had been a good idea. (memorizing ahead of time the turns’ sequence would have been a good idea). We had been assured that because this bob had been built wider and higher than the racing ones it would not flip over indeed ‘could not’. The same design was also in service at Lake Placid New York with no reported problems (at least to that point) however this was little comfort as the G forces quickly built with the rapid acceleration. I happened to be at the back of the sleigh – the brakeman position. Did I mention that in addition to being driverless there were no brakes?

At about the half way point and likely hitting around the 80 kph limited maximum speed the sleigh’s nose seemed to dip down; certainly I and the sleigh went up at the back. The rear runners then crashed down very hard back onto the ice. I remember thinking at the time that this was pushing the limit of what could or should be offered to a perhaps unwitting ‘joe public’ market waiver or not. Having ignored the earnest advice of a young child not to do so due to the severe bump at the bottom, I once, arguably as an adult, rode a borrowed toboggan down said steep hill in Vancouver and jarred my coccyx (tail bone) – not something I would ever want to do again – very painful. This time I was lucky to get away with one in the crashing, banging, speeding, screeching, autonomous bobsleigh. 

The first clue that our 60 seconds give or take ride in the bob was coming to an end came when we realized we were suddenly going uphill and again under significant G forces. How else to stop four adults and a heavy seemingly winged toboggan with no brakes? We climbed out into the winter cold Calgary starry night and, high on adrenaline, went directly and with some alacrity to the nearest pub. 

Remember the movie Cool Runnings? About the Jamaican bobsleigh team at the 1988 Calgary winter olympics. Here on video is the Calgary course as seen by a nose mounted camera: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXRUPKgGMog