pic: 148 + 217 = 128

[Joe Johnson]

I thought that Tchicks had dual lifters? I was pretty sure of it. Where are they in this picture? Did they decide to remove them? Do tell.

Joe J.

[SPurekar]

I'm pretty sure they got removed because of weight issues.

217 came to the Tec Center where 226 was working on ship day and said they were 10lbs overweight. I'm guessing taking the lifters off fixed that problem, but don't quote me on that...(i did like those lifters, they were really pretty)

[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 ...

[Dave Scheck]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I thought that Tchicks had dual lifters?

They did, but they removed them for Saturday's matches. I'm not sure of the exact reason, but it seemed like they were having problems with them during the Friday matches. There were a few times when they tried to deploy where the platform lifted without anybody on it, and I think there was even a time where they accidentally deployed. It was definitely a cool lifting system, but they obviously found a good reason to take it off.

[Grant Cox]

Originally Posted by Dave Scheck

and I think there was even a time where they accidentally deployed.

Ack... I was trying to forget that match.. x_x

Anyways, thanks for the sweet picture. The feeling after we realized what had just happened was insane.. *sets desktop background*