Request for speed limit of 100 km/h on German streets - for Bobby-Cars!

zur deutschen Version

Although I am out of kindergarten since many years already, I still drive my Bobby-Car – not the small red one with the white rims and the dark slight wheels that most of you will imagine now. No, my Bobby-Car is black, it has green wheels and a weight of about 40 kilograms. Most importantly, it is capable to race down the hill with maximum speeds of more than 100 kilometers per hour.

Why do I do this? Because it is fun! Because nothing else in this world can give me the same feeling: Being pressed so closely to my car, watching the scenery flying by and feeling the adrenaline in my veins.

I made my decision to become a racing driver for Bobby-Cars quite early in my childhood days. Already as a boy of only twelve years I spent a lot of time with my friend at the garage where we tuned our sliding cars over and over, again and again. We took off the original wheels to replace them by others, we painted the car body in different colors or we improved the aerodynamics of our vehicles. Then we dared driving down steep forest paths at the outskirts of our village to find out, if our changes caused the right effects.

You can surely imagine that watching my very first Bobby-Car-race was an unforgettable event for me. Men, women and even kids of all ages raced down the hill with their modified vehicles being dressed in motorcycle clothes. They made me feel the wish to try it, too. I already liked the opportunities for my creativity to adjust the vehicle for as long as the chassis of the Bobby-Car was still original. But it would be a lie to say that I was only interested in the technical part. The need for speed was always on my mind since I had watched this very first race.

At the start, my mom was scared to death and many of my friends smiled about my idea, seeing it as a “little kid's game”. But I was thrilled, I went on practicing and tinkering with all my efforts, I took part in races whenever I got the chance and I reached my first wins. But of course I also had to go through disappointments. One of them hit me during the first race of the season in 2006. It was a rainy day and I was already in my fourth run of the day when, all suddenly, with a speed of 45 kilometers per hour I crashed into a barrier. The doctor's diagnosis was: Ligament tear, walking with crutches for a minimum time of six weeks. This was surely no “little kid's game”, in spite of the protections and my thick leather clothes.

Luckily, my downs were always followed by ups, and one of my highlights was a test drive to the Festival of Speed in September 2013. It happened in the evening when the streets had already cooled down a little when, completely unexpected, I exceeded the previous speed record by three kilometers per hour. I raced down the road with a speed of 115 kilometers per hour and became world record holder.

Have a try yourself: Find a steep hill and drive it down as fast as ever possible, on a bike or with a Bobby Car – of course only after checking the brakes and not necessarily when you are wearing shorts. Maybe you will reach 60 kilometers per hour and then you will be able to imagine how indescribably overwhelming my feelings were during the record ride.