2008 IRI (Indiana Robotics Invitational)

[Chris_Elston]

Originally Posted by Kit Gerhart

I would expect the "second" Indiana event to be a less serious event where most teams would use new drivers, and which some teams would attend that were not invited to IRI. It would probably be a much more "low key" competition than IRI.

It's funny that you mention this, as an Indiana Team, my opinion to the team was that we put rookie drivers in for IRI for 2005 and 2006, I changed my mind after 2006, when we came in dead last at IRI in 2006, after almost winning at Boilermaker 2006. Driver experience matters, if that's your team goal. But, it doesn't matter that we lost at IRI because we got experience to an upcoming drive team in 2006 at IRI for 2007. But you know you're right, for 2008 the same drivers we had at Boilermaker 2008 are going to drive at IRI 2008. This was a student team decision instead of using rookie drivers, I assume they "sense" the tension at IRI too...I tend to agree seeing how IRI has changed over the past couple of years. "ego" wise. :-) I say that with a smirk on my face. It's ok to unwind and just have an outright competition.

I see where this "second" event would be handy, because an off season event means to me, the chance to train those upcoming rookie drivers, seniors that we lose. We lost alot of seniors after 2006 and 2007, I miss them all. Trying to gain driver experience at IRI has not been good, we've learned that over the past three years at IRI. We throw them back into the "tigers", rookie drivers come back shaken after an IRI match, I tell them if they can survive IRI, they can survive anything after that. What a way to start out a new driver huh? LOL...