Time Off: Precious Moments

Soaring Two Inches Above the Ground

Dave Mason, the senior vice president of strategy for Nervewire, enjoys traveling 45 miles per hour, two inches off the ground. "I'm a fairly tense person anyway, so it goes with my personality," says Mason, regarding his chosen sport of luging. Mason, 47, took up luging about 10 years ago in Lake Placid, NY, which has the only luge track in the Northeast.
For his first luge run, he was handed a helmet and elbow pads and asked if he'd like any instruction. "Having never done it before, I said, 'Sure!' So the guy put the sled down, and I laid back on the thing, and he said, 'Get your butt up against the crossbar, and here's where you put your legs.' I asked, 'Then what do you do?' He said, 'Nothing. Don't move a muscle!' My immediate reaction was, 'Ah, a sport I can actually do!'"
But Mason quickly learned that not moving muscles isn't easy. "It's very fast, and trying not to react to the speed and to the way the track turns is really hard," he says. "You want to try to steer it. But when you're going 45 miles an hour, if you try to steer it, that's how to get into trouble."
It's not so bad to wreck on one of the big curves, which are icy and slippery. A luger will just slide a ways until he comes to a stop. But if he falls out in one of the straight, concrete parts, it can be a very unpleasant experience, Mason admits.
None of his family members, who have lived near Lake Placid for five generations, will join him when he goes, Mason says. We can't imagine why …