In 1985 Paris represented CANADA in Bed Racing! Continued…

play safe and make the changes. We find the modifications work better. The bed is much sturdier and goes a lot faster. There doesn't seem to be any problem for the runners to steer.

March 1985: The Paris bed race team is in Hawaii to represent Canada In a world-wide field in the annual Carole Kai Bed Race

Team captain Darren Jack is filing regular reports by telephone to the newspapers on events leading up to the March 9 race. Here is his latest report…

REPORT #3 HONOLULU March

6, 1985

We've modified the bed John Edgar, our "chief mechanic" who designed and built the bed along with Kent Pottruff, made the changes on Monday, so I'll let him tell you about it John: "We redesigned the front steering. The bed originally had a single steering mechanism with two sixinch wheels close together at the front. The rider steered. Now we have a castor wheel on each corner and the runners steer the bed. "This should meet the specifications for the race. Our bed hasn't been inspected by race officials yet that's probably sometime Wednesday but we discovered the rules do not allow an axle. Our old design had a sixinch axle between the front wheels, so rather than risk disqualification we decided to

We had a practice run with the redesigned bed Monday night and it worked fine. It rained tonight so we couldn't practice But after Monday night's run we all feel we have a good chance." John's right there! The whole team is really looking forward to the race Every time we take the bed out it seems to produce so much more energy in all of us. The spectators give us a boost, too.

You'd be surprised at the number of Canadians over here, and when they see the sign on our bed saying we're the Canadian team they all stop to talk with us and cheer us on There was a terrific surprise for us today (Tuesday) We had a telegram read to us over the phone. It was from Premier Frank Miller on behalf of the people of Ontario wishing us well in the race. It was very thoughtful, and we were all very pleased. A written copy of the telegram should be coming to us Wednesday, so I'll be able to quote from it the next time I call. It was good to get encouragement from home Dan and Donna Verschoor, who did so well running in Sunday's Great Aloha race, also received a telegram of congratulations from The Shipps in Glen Morris. They were thrilled. By the way, Dan did come fourth over-all in that race. They've made the first 10 positions official. Donna is still not sure of her official position, but we still think she was the fifth woman to finish. We may be able to find out officially on Wednesday. Both runners are being interviewed on radio Wednesday morning Bed race team members also get a couple of radio interviews Wednesday. And then on Thursday we'll be featured in interviews on television. Oh, yes. We've found out that the first team we meet in competition on Saturday will be from Guam, not Japan as we thought. We don't know anything about the Guam team yet, but we will try and find out in the next few days. As I told you earlier, it has been raining tonight It pours, stops, dries up immediately and then pours again. Really weird. It even snowed over on the big island well, up in the mountains. The radio said a hospital there had 16 cases of snow blindness. We spent Tuesday going round this island, doing a lot of sightseeing. So tell everybody we're all okay. And after that first practice with our redesigned bed the team is feeling really good about the race

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REPORT #4 - March 8, 1985

“U.S. Air Force to be team’s first test”

HONOLULU March 8, 1985

We now know exactly who we are up against in our first race Saturday the United States Air Force! We met members of the Guam No. 2 team tonight (Thursday) at the special competitors' banquet and discovered they are all airmen based in Guam. They're all fairly big fellas, but the bigger they are the harder they fall. The really big men are on the team from Fiji. We saw them practicing. They are very fast They were climbing up palm trees for their warm up. One interesting point. CP Air, which would not sponsor us as the Canadian team, is sponsoring the team from Fiji instead. I must say we were a little surprised. There's terrific news from last Sunday's Great Aloha run. We were not supposed to know until Saturday, but it is now confirmed that both Dan and Donna Verschoor won first place in their age categories (15-19 male and female). There will be prizes for them, but we don't know exactly what yet. I told you earlier that 18-year-old Dan placed fourth overall. Well, it is now confirmed that 16-year-old Donna was the sixth woman to finish. Just Super! We spent a couple of hours in practice before going to the banquet tonight. Things went fine. I'll put Dave Landsborough on the line to tell you about it. He's one of our runners (bed pushers) Dave: "We concentrated this time on handing off the bed to other runners, stopping and starting, and getting the rider in and out of the bed in double-quick time. It was all in preparation for the unknown obstacle task each team has to perform in the middle of each race. They don't let anybody know until race time, so we have to be prepared for anything. In past years they've had team members putting balloons in containers, racing round the beds and having teams dress up in firemen's outfits. You can bet they'll think up something crazy for the so called `equalizer' event. "Practices have been going fine. We can always do with more, but we are getting better all the time. We plan to have another session Friday after we get back from Pearl Harbor. We leave about

8.30 a.m. and should be back by about 3 p.m. After the practice we'll probably have an early night Everybody will want to get to bed to be in top shape for Saturday. "We'll have to be 'up early that day. The bed has to be at Fort DeRussey Park at 8.30 a.m. Then it has to be decorated for the parade that starts at 10 a m The beds will be paraded for about 11/2 miles so members of the team who first test are not taking part in the competitions will go in the parade. Walking all that way in the hot sun would take too much out of the runners who will be in the race. The weather was a little cooler today and there's a high wind warning for Friday. We're keeping our fingers crossed for Saturday, though we have had some practice sessions in the rain." Yes, we're all ready for the big event. Saturday is going to be a very emotional day. On Sunday, we're invited to the Variety Club School They're giving us brunch Then we have to pack up everything and be ready to leave at 4 30 p m We fly to Chicago this time, getting there about 7 a.m. Monday. We are scheduled to land in Toronto at 9 a.m. so should be back at Paris District High School by noon. This has been an actionpacked–week, and we've all had a great time Our team members are a super bunch of girls and guys. We owe a lot to our sponsors and to the people of Paris Thank you all We'll do our best on Saturday. …