Here’s How Honda Helped The USA Olympic Bobsled And Skeleton Teams Go Faster

Bobsled and Skeleton are one of those Olympic Games which requires an athlete to be in peak form, but that alone won’t win the gold medal. These are athletes, much like racing drivers, who have to be in tune with their equipment, and it has to be perfectly engineered to eke out a few hundredths of a second more than everyone else. 

For the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano Cortina, Honda and Acura have partnered with Team USA to provide engineering and development assistance. While these human-and-gravity-powered ice skate missiles are not powered by engines, they share a lot of commonalities Honda’s decades of winning motorsport programs. For starters, Honda helped Team USA develop their sleds in the company’s Honda Automotive Laboratories of Ohio (HALO) facility. 

 “We’re applying the same mentality that we apply to automobiles,” said Mike Unger, Director of HALO Wind Tunnel. With precision that even an Olympic Team can’t measure, Honda engineers helped the team craft its sleds to the nth degree allowable by the rulebook. It’s a holistic approach, as the team can get an instant look at the best way not only to build the sled itself, but how to sit in the sled as a team to best aerodynamic effect. And that can change from corner to corner, using the positioning of a riding body to best carve its way through a turn. This is deep stuff, man. 

“When you work with a team like Honda and see the number of engineers that are here to support our team and the facilities we are working in, it really gets us excited about what we can possibly do for our athletes,” beamed Aron McGuire, USABS CEO.

This is the kind of research and development that a team of Olympians simply can’t do on their own. This is dedicated engineering work that is typically beyond the scope of the athletes themselves. 

“As a pilot up in the front of the sled, I can have quite a bit of influence on the aerodynamics. I’m learning about where to put my head for positioning, helmet tilt, some really important things,” said Frank Del Duca, Bobsled driver for Team USA Two-man and Four-man events. “I’m trying to find that hundredth of a second or two going down the track.” 

The USA Bobsled team won Women’s Monobob Gold and Silver medals at the 2022 Beijing games, and the two-woman sled team found a Silver in Pyeongchang, but the Men haven’t seen a podium position since Sochi in 2014. Likewise, both the Men’s and Women’s Skeleton teams have failed to podium since 2014. Hopefully with some help from Honda, the Americans can take the fight to the German favorites (who are aided by BMW). 

Honda says that the Olympic sleds will wear Acura badging to signify that this is a premium Honda project, while also indicating that this is a North American effort from the engineers here, rather than a Japanese one. Leave it to the best engineers in Ohio to build something great for the world stage.