July 1985 Paris bed travels to N.Y.C. helps to raise $60,000 for charity

Later in the same year The Paris Bed Race team headed to The Great Bed Race held in Manhattan. A fun-filled event that raised over $60,000 in donations to combat muscular dystrophy. The event featured teams pushing beds on wheels, with each team contributing at least $1,000 to participate in the race. One team that stood out was the United Air Lines' reservation office in Rockleigh. The team consisted of four muscular young men wearing Hawaiian skirts and running shoes who pushed a bed with a friend on it. They raised $1,700 to contribute to the fight against muscular dystrophy as an entry fee for the race. The United team was joined by about 30 other teams, and a crowd of about 3,000 people The event was a success, with people cheering heat after heat of bed racers One young woman, Deborah Wasser of East 87th Street, was a little disgruntled at being awakened by one of the event's sponsors, radio station Z100, whose deejays were blasting rock and race commentary outside her home, she said But she was soon offered the chance to join another team, Hillside Bedding, whose passenger had been disqualified for being under 18. Ms. Wasser gamely volunteered to join the team, and they sprinted about 150 yards up ThirdAvenue. Although the United Air Lines' crew and Ms. Wasser's team lost early in the elimination tournament, United's team won a prize for the most original costumes Four of New Jersey's finest beds were also eliminated, including Edgewater's Lever Brothers Research and Development, a favorite because of its all-aluminum engineer-designed bed, which lost in the semifinals. Malcolm Konner Chevrolet of Paramus had a large cheerleading contingent but still lost.

The final heat was a replay of last year's closely contested match Bed Six, a small-wheeled groundhugger pushed by the All-Canadian Bed Race Team from Paris, Ontario, raced Bed Eight, a hightech triangular model that sat on a spindly frame of guy wires and aluminum, with two bicycle tires close together in front forming the triangle's apex. It was pushed by the New York Fire Department's Engine Company 37, Ladder 40, of 125th Street. The hometown crowd was clearly rooting for the firemen, but their Moosehead Special looked shaky, with only thin wires and bicycle-frame tubing for support And the Canadians were proven champs. They had driven 12 hours to compete, had beaten the firemen last year, and had recently returned from an international bed race in Hawaii, where they had finished second. The referee yelled "Go!" and the two teams sprinted toward the finish line. The crowd roared, the runners sweated, and the beds rolled. The firemen won by a nose. "It comes down to sheer guts," fireman George Joos, 30, said as he wiped some champagne from his brow. The Canadians were good sports, vowing to compete next year and inviting all to a bed race in Paris, Ontario, their hometown. "Come on up, it is only 800 miles north I'll put you all up at my place," said one of the runners to the crowd.