Friday, February 24, 2012

4-Man World Championships This Saturday and Sunday 9am est

Good Morning Everyone,

I just wanted to remind you to watch all 4 Heats of the 4-Man World Championship Races LIVE This Saturday and Sunday at 9AM est.!!! Just follow this link http://eurovision.digotel.com/fibt/index.html And if you are not able to watch it live, still click on this link and watch the video replay that is located in a video box link at the bottom of the web-page.

It has been a crazy season for me full of ups and downs but I will fill you in on everything at the end of Worlds.

Thanks and God Bless

Jesse

www.jessebeckom3.com

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Altenberg Germany Race Week Jan 02-Jan08 2012

Flight to Frankfurt

On December 30th after ten days of semi-rest and semi-relaxation we headed back over to Europe for the second half of the World Cup Tour. In keeping with my history of flight delays/cancellations the flight back to Europe sadly would not disappoint. My flight out of Colorado Springs left at 6:20 am (I looked on line and there was a flight I could have been booked on that left at 9am) meaning I had to leave for the airport at 4:30 in the morning, then I was scheduled for a 5 hour layover at Washington Dulles Airport all of this before a 9hour flight to Frankfurt!!...yeah, I was not happy about any of this. After about four hours of sitting and playing on the internet in Washington Dulles Airport about 12 of my other teammates begin to arrive, (Must have been nice to sleep in Ahhh!).

Shortly thereafter we all boarded our plane, and after sitting there for about twenty minutes the Pilot announces that there will be about an hour delay while they fix a cargo bay door that was malfunctioning! (Thinking what I'm thinking?). We sat on the plane a good hour when it became apparent that we are not going anywhere for at least another hour if not longer. Having a good feeling about the next plausible outcome and to the chagrin of others passengers my teammates and I began making joke after joke about how we would not be going anywhere for a while. In the midst of our joking the Pilot who was in need of attention…. And…… apparently jealous of our conversation rudely comes over the PA announcing that they are unable to fix the cargo bay door and that we need to switch planes!!! I know right!! It’s not good enough for this guy to be sitting up front but he has to disrupt our conversation as well! The nerve of such people! Lol. Regardless at this point there was no need to be mad so I continued to joke with my teammates as we went to Taco Bell for a quick bite as we waited or change in aircrafts. Ironically enough the change in planes benefited everyone, since we were now on a more modern plane and.....I now had three row seat to myself! Ok so when I say everyone I mainly mean me! Lol After the plane doors officially closed I may or may not have teased our teams Physio (Sports Physician) who was sitting behind me! And I may or may not have informed him that I would be watching three different movies on each of the screens at my disposal! And… I may or may not have fully laid out in each direction possibly still teasing our Physio each time I changed direction.....I'm just saying that may have happened and that he may have deserved it since he was giving me guff (yes I just used that word) about my previous tight seating arrangement on the plane before. WHOSE THE BIG MAN NOW BUDDY!!!! OH YEAH I'M YO DADDY TODAY, THE PASSENGER WITH EXTRA LEG ROOMS LOOKS LIKE WHO? YUP HE LOOKS LIKE JESSE! ........Are some statements that I can neither confirm nor deny that I may possibly, could have made! But mind you this is purely based on speculation, hearsay, and eye witness reports by those with conflicts of interest lol

Taking into the time difference between the US and Germany we arrived on New Year's Eve. We rang in the New Year with bottles of juice in the hotel lobby!! It was so crazy; with all that apple juice we almost started a riot! lol Since we were looking at a five hour drive to Altenberg Germany we did not have any time of big celebration to ring in the New Year. And after that we tried to create a Hands Across America Chain but in Germany (Movie Beerfest reference)......yeah in short it did not work but that is a whole other story! lol

Altenberg, Germany Race Week

After arriving in Altenberg, Germany we checked into the Best Western Waldhoutel Stephanahohe. Usually when we stay in hotels overseas we are the only ones staying there (except in St. Moritz where the Canadians and the Netherlands stay at the same hotel as us), however the Entire Russian Bobsled and Skeleton Team, Austrian Bobsled Team, German Skeleton, and Australian Skeleton were at this hotel along with regular guest staying at the hotel. Although it’s fun to stat at a hotel with other teams we do enjoy being at a hotel where it’s just the American Team staying there, but not only because the competitive nature of the sport and the thought of eating three meals a day next to your competition, but also because we all use the internet which causes for an extremely slow connection. Now when I say its slow I am not being a spoiled athlete or anything but I tried to send one email that was maybe a paragraph long, without any attachments and it took me twenty minutes to do so because the server kept timing out on me. Needless to say I never even attempted to upload and pictures or videos since I could not imagine how long that would take.

Being that I had yet to race on the track in Altenberg I was extremely excited. I was not only excited because it was a new track for me but because it is in the top 3 of the hardest and more dangerous tracks in the world!! That same excitement may have been the reason for my little truck malfunction. For all practical purposes this is my first year actually driving one of our cargo trucks which happen to be all stick shifts/manual. Admittedly I am not the best manual car driver in the world and frankly I wish every car was automatic! I truly hate the fact that on a hill you have a great possibility of rolling backward or forward more easily, in my opinion it’s just dumb and now I have even more reason to hate them. It was the first day of training and since I had not driven the truck in a while figured it was my turn to drive to the track, so we load the two man sled in and head out. The day was typical enough being a just as cold and snowy and I have to admit I was handling the driving conditions like a champ. I was shifting gears a lot smoother, feeling pretty confident in my driving skills. I pulled up to the track executing a three point turn backed the truck up and unloaded the sleds just as smooth as I would in an automatic car. After the sled is unloaded I go to park our truck next to the other trucks but there is no room, causing me to have to try and park on the private road leading up to the track where other trucks are parked as well. Unfortunately all the wider parts of the road were filled and if I tried to park on a narrower part I would be blocking traffic. I end up doing a circle down to the road entrance and back up through the gate where we unloaded the bobsled when I see a space to park!!! Once again I am feeling like new money because I have been backing up and down hills doing U turns I'm Like "WHAT Stick Shift I got this!!" yeah I was Wrong So Very Wrong!! So I park the truck and hop out and head over to help with the sled. Two minutes later as I am walking towards our sled one of the Belgium girls comes running up screaming "Jesse! Jesse! were you driving the Europacar Cargo Van!? I say yes why? She says you forgot to put on the Emergency Break and it rolled backwards into a car (evidently I was parked on a slight incline)!!!.....YEAH exactly what I'm thinking! Making the situation even worse is that I knew the only car it could have rolled into was one of the BMW X5' that was parked behind it!!! I start running back towards the vehicle and the only thing I can imagine in my head is that I just totaled a $90,000 car and I am not going to be able to pay for this in any form of currency unless they take monopoly money! I get to the vehicles and to my surprise the BMW is not totaled but the Cargo Van definitely hit it. I hop into the cargo van, slowly pulling forward re-parking it and pulling the Emergency Break! then hopping out. Go look at the BMW and thankfully it only has a nice sized dent in the back door!! Thank you God!! I was so relived because it did not hit anyone, the BMW nor the truck was totaled nor did it roll forward into the track which would have been horrible. And that was my start of the week how was yours? lol

Snowball Fight USA vs. Russia

As I previously mentioned the Russian and other teams were staying at the hotel with us and as long as it not race day we all pretty much get along with one another. However we were in close proximity to one another and there was snow on the ground soooooooooooo………yeah one day at the hotel after training IT WAS Snowball Fight Time Apparently! I suppose it was bound to happen, but the Russian pulled the trigger firs….but we held the trigger a bit longer. Here’s how it began, we pulled up to the back of the hotel to unload our Four-Man sled and as the truck is backing up to the garage we see a few snowballs come flying in!! We all start looking around to see where they are coming from and Surprise Surprise they are coming from the direction of the Russians whose garage was about 150 feet down from ours. These snowballs came in with a vengeance, hard fast and accurate which should be expected since we are a bunch of 220 plus guys who lift all day throwing snow balls at each other. After a few snow ball came in we devised a plan to flank the Russians! About four guys (usually only one person parks the van hoped in the truck as if to only park the van like normal. The great thing about where we parked the Vans is that it is a hill that is to the West of the garages housing all the sleds, Yup Taking the High Grown!!! While at the same time me and two other guys are straight military crawling from the North heading straight on towards the Russians alongside the Row of Russian Vans that were parked there! As a diversionary tactic we throw snowballs from our position as our guys up top got into position. The Russians started throwing snowballs in my direction, creeping up on us getting more in the open!! Soon as they got into a good clearing Snowballs from the guys positioned at the top began raining down on them!!! In our mind it was Gladiator and we had Just Unleashed Hell!!! Lol The guys at the top of the Hill was letting them have it something serious, while we were also letting loose! The Russians were caught completely surprised and began to scatter! They put up a good fight and we were still surprised at how accurate they were it was amazing!!! But in the end we drove them back into their Garages!! Lol USA 1-Russia 0 babe!!!

Start of Racing

In following with this season’s tradition the forecast for the races showed strong signs of blizzard types of snow. I guess we should have expected that since most of our race venues are in ski towns. The day of the race we could tell it would be one of those days, especially since the race was delayed twice!!! The first delay we were aware and planned accordingly, leaving for the track later than earlier planned. Once we arrived at the track the FIBT Jury members decided to delay the race another hour due to snow. Four hours after the originally planned event the race began!! The Germans were some of the earlier sleds and the weather was actually a bit nice (Yeah they have a snow maker they control lol), ironically enough after the German sleds had gone snow flurries began off and on throughout the rest of the first heat. The Start ramp did not look that bad but I do doubt how well they really sweep the start groves out Team USA is on the block in a foreign country. Any way after the first heat USA-1 (Holcomb Driving/Langton Braking) was in fifth position and USA-2 (Napier Driving/Robinson Braking) was in 17th position. During the last fifteen minutes of the forty-five minutes break between heats they begin to send forerunners down the track to insure the track conditions are safe to continue the race. Unfortunately the snow fall significantly increased, so much that by the time the pilots of the forerunner sleds reached the bottom there visors were covered with snow making visibility difficult. After the FIBT Jury members spoke with the drivers of the forerunning sleds they decided to cancel the second heat of the race for safety issues. With the cancellation of the second heat it meant that whatever sled position you were in after heat would be the official and final results of the race. Needless to say Team USA was extremely frustrated but that's the way racing goes at times...The only positive we could take from this is that tomorrow was the four-man race which we were banking on being a better day!

The next day I woke up at 6am to start my normal preparations for our 9 a.m. race, which included a quick breakfast and a forty-five minute weight room session focusing on explosion and speed (a.k.a Potentiation). With all that done it was time to load up the 4-Man Sled and head to the Track (I was not driving!! lol) This week we (USA 2 Napier, Beckom, Clark, and Fogt) were off 12th, and at about 2-minutes per sled I knew I needed to be ready at 9:24 a.m. get or take a few minutes. This is important information to know since it dictates when I need to start my one hour warm-up. During my warm-up can you guessed what happened?.....Yup it began snowing!! I am just like oh great another lovely day with perfect race day conditions! The good thing is that as the race began the snow started to stop, well.......that is until we stepped to the line and the snow just began falling like crazy!! In an effort to minimize the amount of time snow had to build on the start ramp we began stripping down to our race suits while the before us was half way down the hill; allowing us to place the sled on the Ice quicker and go as soon as we had the green light. Like clockwork we hear the start tone, see the green light, drop into position, call the cadence and we are off!! The hit felt good and as I was pushing I was thinking we are money since the timing felt great!! We get down to the bottom and look and are surprised by the down time and then we here the push time, we are not happy! It was pretty slow and off the pace we and no clue what happened. We stood at the bottom looking up at the monitor watching as the snow cleared up and sleds with seemingly sloppier runs down the track were beating us. It was not until we got to the top that the coaches told us how bad the groves were, the force was not with us on this run and it was extremely disappointing. Our Driver Napier also informed us that we were like a snow plow coming down with all the snow that had been built up in the track. But we had one more heat to go, so we had to forget about the first, and concentrate on the next heat and see if we can make up some time.

Just a quick note, in bobsled the second starts in reverse order from 20-1. Being that our first run was so fabulous we were third or so off. Thank God that this time the snow had actually stopped for us and when we got down to the bottom we found out that we had dropped our start by .11 which is a ton of time!! The face that we dropped so much time off was a relief since we have been battling all season against the stereotype that we have a slow crew when we Don’t! We were pleased with the start but that first heat killed us and we ended up in 16th a little better than the 2-man race but nothing to write home about which is also part of the reason it has taken me so long to send out an update since I like to be in a little better spirits when I send them out!

After the Altenberg, Germany Race it was time to pack up and head to Konigssee the site of Next World Cup Race.

Also, I want to remind you all that you can watch our races live and replay races you missed at http://eurovision.digotel.com/fibt/index.html.

God Bless

JB3

www.jessebeckom3.com