Dean Bennett, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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WHISTLER, B.C. - Bobsledder Pierre Lueders has turned his season around, and now hopes his new secret weapon will give him the edge in the first World Cup sledding event at the home of the 2010 Olympics.

The 38-year-old Edmonton pilot will test his new four-man sled - dubbed the 'Whistler Bomber' - at the FIBT skeleton and bobsled races, which begin Thursday at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

"This is as good a test facility as any to see if things we've done are working," said Lueders after the final training runs Wednesday.

He declined to detail the modifications, saying he wants to keep a competitive advantage and not delve into technical minutiae.

"Some of the changes (to the sled), even I don't understand them. I just drive the thing," he said.

The new sled has been tested in a wind tunnel and jammed with sensors to measure G-loads and vibrations to hopefully give Lueders the edge he needs to add a third Olympic medal to his trophy case.

Lueders declined to predict if he'll match the gold-medal performance he and brakeman David Bissett of Edmonton pulled off two weeks ago in the two-man event at the World Cup in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

"For me the goal is to just have two stable runs and in the two-man and four-man and let the chips fall where they may."

Drivers, he said, are still finding their way around the new 16-turn course, which corkscrews racers down a dizzying 152 metres through 1.45 kilometres of concrete and ice punctuated by turns delivering five-G loads - equivalent to a space launch.

The middle section of the course has been dubbed the "Lueders Loop." But the loop's namesake said he's still working to find the best line through the corners higher up.

"It's such a different track for everybody. Just when you think you've got one section (solved), you screw up something else."

Solving one problem while screwing up another has been the recurring theme of his World Cup season.

Lueders crashed twice in the course of a month to start off the campaign - once in training in Whistler and then in early December. He sprained the joint that links the bones of the arms and shoulders to the rest of the body.

Last month his sled was disqualified at Konigssee, Germany, because it was one kilogram overweight. He is currently ranked 10th in the World Cup standings in the two-man sled and 14th in the four-man.

"It hasn't been exactly an easy year. I'd be lying if I said I was at 100 per cent."

While Lueders worked on the upper part of the course in pre-race heats this week, his competitors struggled with Turn 13, a sharp left-hander that leads into the horseshoe curve that slingshots sliders to the finish line. Teams have dubbed it 'The 50-50.'

Bobsledder Helen Upperton of Calgary said a short straightaway heading into the turn is challenging pilots to keep the nose of the sled up.

"'The sleds sort of topples out. And it's happening so fast. We're going almost 145 (km/h) so you can imagine how quick your reaction time has to be."

Bobsledder Lyndon Rush of Humboldt, Sask. - ranked 13th in the two-man sled - labelled the course "faster than any other track in the world. It's real technical at the top and real speedy and open at the bottom.

"You can make time on this track because people are going to make mistakes."

The World Cup begins Thursday with the skeleton competition.

Slider Mellisa Hollingsworth hopes to keep up the momentum from her recent silver medal performance at St. Moritz.

The 28-year-old from Eckville, Alta., had not on the podium since she won a bronze medal in Altenberg, Germany, in December and is ranked ninth in World Cup.

On the men's side, Olympic silver medallist Jeff Pain of Calgary looks to improve on his fifth-place ranking in the standings.

Women's' bobsled and men's two-man bobsled will run Friday and the four-man bobsled teams take to the course on Saturday.