Pereyra Proves He Was Born to Luge

In a fitting finish Bob Pereyra, the Northridge man who invented luge street racing, took first place in the two-man dual event at the Extreme Games last week in Rhode Island.

Pereyra won despite a heel injury that forced him to miss a second event, the four-man mass luge. TV cameras caught him needing a crutch to stand up moments after crossing the finish line in the two-man dual final.

“Officials saw that and told me I couldn’t race again,” Pereyra said. “They said it was a liability thing. I was pretty upset.”

That disappointment couldn’t dampen the thrill of winning the 5/8-mile dual race before a crowd of about 10,000. Pereyra won six heat races before taking the final by about 10 luge lengths.

“The crowd was behind me all the way,” said Pereyra, who earned a purse of $4,000. “They were six-to-seven thick along the entire track. Every time I came around a corner, this roar would go up. I could hear everything.”

Even traveling 70 m.p.h about one inch from the ground. Because luges are not motorized, the race is essentially quiet except for crowd noise.

The Extreme Games exposure should create some noise for his sport, Pereyra believes.

“This will give us a lot more members, I could tell by the interest it generated,” he said. “It was a very special and emotional event, it really was. We gave a clinic where we taught kids how to luge and had a great response.

“This gave the world a glimpse of something that people thought was crazy but is an actual racing sport. There is talk of more races and this could finally give us the racing series we’ve wanted.”

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Team Endeavor finished more than a day late and a dollar short, but finish it did, surviving the grueling Extreme Games Eco-Challenge in the backwoods and waterways of Maine and Rhode Island.

The Valley quintet crossed the finish line at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, in eighth place about 35 hours after first-place Team Threadbo. Only eight of 12 teams completed the weeklong race.

And nobody made a dime. The purse earmarked for the event was used up during the race.

“It was basically used to defray expenses,” said Laurie Bein, an ESPN spokeswoman. “The race turned out to be a lot more expensive to run than we anticipated.”

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Gold, gold, gold, gold and mix in a silver. Medals all, won by Karen Norris of Van Nuys in last week’s National Amputee Games, held in Cambridge, Mass.

Norris, whose left leg is amputated below the knee, has emerged as the nation’s top female paralympic swimmer. Her performance in the Amputee Games is a springboard to qualifying for the 1996 Paralympics, held in Atlanta in coordination with the Olympic Games.

“I’m right on track, definitely,” said Norris, who is ranked No. 1 in her class, which includes the least-disabled competitors.

Norris, 29, won gold medals in the 200 meter individual medley, 100 backstroke, 100 freestyle and 50 freestyle, and took a silver in the 100 breaststroke.

Winning was great, but Norris was most pleased to see increased participation at the Amputee Games.

“This year we had some new athletes,” she said. “It’s wonderful to get them. Bringing in more disabled people to this kind of competition is what it’s all about.”