ThyssenKrupp Magazin

4 BOBSLEIGH RACING
Susi Erdmann is the current
world champion in the two-man
bobsleigh. She, too, profits from
the know-how of bobsleigh
expert Klaus Nowak.
He has developed new runners
for her in the hope that she will
remain difficult to beat in the
world’s ice channels.
It’s a queasy feeling. Because just the experience of seeing a bobsleigh race past
you as fast as an arrow at a speed of 150 km/h is crazy! But then to sit in the thing
yourself, with a helmet on your head that almost endearingly covers every millimeter
of your head so that you don’t suffer any damage from the violent knocks, that’s
no joke any more. Because what awaits you on this hair-raising run apart from the
guaranteed “ultimate kick”?
What a piece of luck that you are allowed to take your place in the bob and three
young men push the vehicle on its way. Not just any old how, but with all their might.
It’s beautiful, the first 20 meters on the bobsleigh track remind you of a sightseeing
tour, you look around the landscape, at the pretty hills in tranquil Winterberg in the
Sauerland region. But only for a few seconds before the bob turns into the first corner
– the racing journey begins, unstoppable, getting faster and faster without the unsuspecting
bob passenger having even the slightest idea of which corner he is shooting
through right now with such power that it takes his breath away.
“Bobbing is no child’s play.” This is said by someone with a serious voice but
clearly sparkling eyes that make it obvious straight away: Klaus Nowak is wildly enthusiastic
about this sport. Even in his small office, at the center of the sprawling Witten
works site of Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld GmbH, part of ThyssenKrupp Steel, his bob-
Steel makes
the difference
in this ice race
World-class performance in the
bobsleigh requires sleds made from
the best materials. Fortunately,
Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld GmbH’s Klaus
Nowak has a reputation as one of the
“high priests of the bob runners”
By Heribert Klein | Photos Walter Schmitz
sleighing enthusiasm is infectious. There he sits at his
computer like a driving instructor explaining the theory of
driving a car, and takes his guest with him on a journey
under and through the bobsleigh, something which is
usually out of the question for outsiders. For a bob is a
high-tech product into which the designer lets nobody
look except the bob pilots. With good reason, because if
you look at the world elite of men and women bobsleighers,
you will see the difference is not in seconds but
in hundredths of seconds, expressed in distance, centimeters
not meters.
OBSESSED WITH BOB-TUNING TECHNOLOGY
Now and then Nowak has been called the “high priest of
bob runners” – to express that he is one of the top specialists
who really knows about this difficult phenomenon
of the runners and the bobsleigh. Although first of all, at
the Witten plant he is responsible for the mechanical re-
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |