pic: 148 + 217 = 128

[Paul Copioli]

We did / do have dual lifters and we made weight with the lifters. Several factors played into our decision to lose the lifters. This was a St. Louis Regional decision only. The factors were:

1. Thursday we had the lifters off to replace Lexan on the lifters and practiced without them. Our drivers were putting up 6 - 7 ringers every practice we attended.

2. Friday, we put the lifters on, but the deployment mechanism was not working effectively so they were tywrapped in place. We weighed 119.8 with the lifters on.

3. Also, our drivers were having a hard time seeing the tubes on the ground with the wings in place and our tube placement effectiveness suffered.

4. We were now what we did not want to be: mediocre at one thing because we tried to do both.

5. The team decided to take them off for Saturday and wait until our team meeting on Thursday to make a decision on the rest of the season. We added weight to be back at about 119 for eliminations since we knew we were only going to use a tube only strategy.

6. As everyone has probably heard, our arm was not robust enough to survive all of the elimination rounds. This is due to the fact that we tried to eliminate weight at every possible location. We will be making the arm more durable, but don't count the lifters out yet.

In summary, I bet we will have at least one lifter in Detroit to counter the defense / dual lifter combinations ...