by slace22 » Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:59 pm
You are going to love Skeleton.
Skeletor i love the UFC also but way too old for it, lol, although i do have good grappling skills and have very good submissions and fought alot when i was young but that was many many moons ago, lol.
Teej i have been on a streetluge many times doing around 60mph and i raced go-karts for 10 years but nothing prepared me for Skeleton , the fact that the walls are so close to you makes it feel even faster than it is and once you come out of turn 6 everything happens soooooo fast, you have no time to think all you can do is just react without thinking.
It was probably the last day of class before i really started seeing things , my mind finally caught up with the speed and i started understanding what was going on around me.
When you hit turn 6 after starting from the top of the track , the g's are incredible , 4 to5 g's and your face gets pulled to the ice.
It is an awesome sport .
Here's a blog i posted on myspace about a trip down the track at Utah Olympic Park.
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When your standing at the start gate at the track and you get the go ahead to start your run you get butterflies in your stomach because you know for the next 60 seconds your going to get the heck beat out of you.
You start your run and hopefully you get a good push so your time will be faster but it'll also be a scarier run.
You hop on your sled and have to get situated on your sled very fast because turn 1 is coming . Your now laying face down on your stomach on a small but heavy sled and your going face first with your chin about an inch from the ice , as you enter turn 1 its just a small little turn no big deal but you'll only have a few seconds to relax because turn 2 is here and its also very easy and you still have time to prepare for the hard turns to come , turn 3 is also easy but now you have to get ready for turn 4 , as you enter 4 it is u shaped and turns you around very fast , this is the first turn you climb the wall on, going into 4 your probably doing around 25mph but coming out of 4 your going to have about a 100 feet before you hit 6 , turn 5 is easy but turn 6 is coming and from 4 to 6 you'll go from around 25 to almost 80mph in just a few feet and when you hit turn 6 you hit 5g's and your head gets slammed to the ice and your face sheild rubs the ice as you go through at speeds close to 80mph , i myself hit 76.1 in turn 6 , if you think thats bad well coming out of 6 into 7 you will hit hard if you dont enter turn 6 early and when i say hard i mean 80mph hard , i've only hit once out of 6 but i instantly had a migrane , it sucked.
The next few turns 8, 9 and 10 arent too bad although your flying through them so fast its hard to really grasp whats happening , then comes the big one Turn 11 a really fast left hand turn that also slams your face into the ice once again at 80mph, and by now the 5g's in this turn are kicking your butt and your neck is hurting from trying to hold your head up and you cant wait until you cross the finish line , as soon as you exit 11 you have no time for a break because you have to now take a big right hand turn at 80mph and your face gets to clean the ice again and those 5g's are freakin taken there toll on you , exit 12 and get about a 3 second break because 13 isnt bad but now here comes yet another freakin big right hander that once again slams your head down and another 5g's on the body and your neck takes another load , coming out of 14 is a long straight and a relaxing moment but you better not relax too much because that straight isnt as easy as it seems you will get sideways in a hurry and thats not a good place to be when the final turn 15 is coming up , Turn 15 isnt too big but its just akward the way it handles and if your not prepared it'll spit you into the wall when you exit and cross the finish line , yes the finish line its over , whew trust me 3 runs down this track in one day and your finished , it aint easy and it aint smooth like it looks on TV , but i cant wait until the season starts so i can slide again , I LOVE IT so much.
Harold R.