AIPP Round Three 2008 - The Bridge

[The Duckmeister]

Oh, shock horror! The secrets out, we're doomed! I can understand a need for secrecy while elements of the trikes that Tru Blu, Phantom, ourselves, etc are designing and building, because information given that later could become false/redundant can be damaging. There, the beans are well and truly out now!

As far as we're concerned at Tru Blu, the only real desire for secrecy is 'cos we were the first team outside Weeroona to get one of their fairings. Given how well we went at MB in our old one last year, we just wanted to pack a bit of shock factor. But that cat got let out of the bag quite early and was pretty much common knowledge by Round 1. As far as setup, we are not running anything particularly revolutionary - just the jump to an enclosed vehicle is a big enough one for now.

[Khye]

Ugh, Fried Fish.. You'll never eat fish from a takeaway shop until youve worked at one...Not saying my buisness was feral, it came to us frozen looking like crap!

I Just realised i have 23 days of school left....WOOT

i think every 24 ive had was rushed, you dont realise how long little things take. Especially when i was still racing for Xavier, although, we have a couple of really good teeachers who always stay back and seem to finish things off for us!

[Finno]

As far as we're concerned at Tru Blu, the only real desire for secrecy is 'cos we were the first team outside Weeroona to get one of their fairings. Given how well we went at MB in our old one last year, we just wanted to pack a bit of shock factor. But that cat got let out of the bag quite early and was pretty much common knowledge by Round 1. As far as setup, we are not running anything particularly revolutionary - just the jump to an enclosed vehicle is a big enough one for now.

I guess there's an expectation now that you guys will win the race (or at least do very, very well) given the Weeroona fairing and its known qualities. Whether fairly or not, it puts the pressure on I guess.

[brenton]

I guess there's an expectation now that you guys will win the race.

Mmm not sure about that. We're certainly not expecting to win. It's a damn tough field this year. I think there's 5 or 6 teams who have a genuine chance of winning. We're just hoping to improve on last year's result.

[Tim]

So you're expecting to come 2nd then Brenton?

[The Duckmeister]

I guess there's an expectation now that you guys will win the race (or at least do very, very well) given the Weeroona fairing and its known qualities. Whether fairly or not, it puts the pressure on I guess.

I think that given the third in our first visit last year, there would be a bit of pressure, even from ourselves, to try to improve this time around, regardless of what vehicle we used. Yes, we are going faster than last year, which is to be expected with the new equipment, but so are other teams. The outcome is far from a foregone conclusion. Whatever happens, it is going to be an extremely tightly fought and exciting race.

[Khye]

You dont turn up to a 24 with just wanting second, your there to win, if not, you may aswell just not come.

[Tim]

If that were the case Khye, you and 229 other teams, might as well stay at home

Some teams have more realistic expectations and just love to compete, to try and do better than last time. We know we can't win this year, but that won't stop us trying to do the best we can with what we have available. Top 5 this year will be a helluva effort for anyone!

[Khye]

By saying that, alot of teams come for fun, and at the end of the day, so do i, i love pedal prix, but you don't train for hours on end, and spend thousands of dollars on just wanted second best, you want to win somethign to show for your effort.

EDIT: Tim, looks like you bet me to the punch , And yes, i agree, but just because you think you can't win doesnt mean you should not try

[tsco]

Khye, the problem with the "win or bust" attitude, is that it leaves you nowhere to go if you don't win, and can really mess with your outlook on life.

A much better attitidue: "Last year, we completed 406 laps and were involved in two crashes, and almost split our team seven different ways from sunday through unrealistic expectations. This year, we'd like to avoid those crashes if possible, to minimise time lost to mishaps and any other avoidable mechanicals, and reduce the gap in lap times to the leading teams. But overall, we'd like to leave the race with a clean reputation, and every team member in higher spirits than what they arrived..."

xxx laps is probably acheivable for us this year (with xxx still to be decided as a race goal before the race), but I think there will be other teams who will do a lot more. Its pointless loosing sleep or getting worked up over something that you can't control.

[dean]

We learnt a lot about that in 2006. We felt a lot of pressure to win the 24hr again, after having taken it out in 2005. We felt like we really had to win it. So at the race, when we were nowhere near the pace of the front-runners, it was very disappointing because there had been so much build up and anticipation to win. For the rest of the 24hr, we weren't enjoying it all, because we had expected too much and anything less was going to be a disppointment.

From then on (because I had lost the fun of racing pedal prix) I decided to never again come to a race expecting to win, but instead to prepare the best we can, then just turn up to the race, have fun (above all else) , go as hard as we can and see where that leaves us at the end , hopefully in the top 3 or 5. Having no expectations, or at least modest/understated expectations, has changed the way I view racing, and has improved the enjoyment greatly. So Khye, don't put pressure on yourself (or your team members), by all means be ambitious of course but that extra bit of pressure will ruin it for you. Trust me, the 2006 AIPP was a LONG 24hr! haha

We also learnt other lessons in 2006..... like if you stand still, you'll get left behind. We sure did get left behind that year! Got beaten by 23 laps!!! doh!!

[brenton]

I decided to never again come to a race expecting to win, but instead to prepare the best we can, then just turn up to the race, have fun (above all else) , go as hard as we can and see where that leaves us at the end , hopefully in the top 3 or 5.

My thoughts exactly. I think you just set yourself up for dissapointment if you arrive with a "we're going to win" attitude. There's nothing wrong with aiming to win, but I think you need to approach the race with the idea of just doing the best you possibly can. If we finish lower than we did last year but get beaten by teams who are stronger and out-perform us at the race, then that's fine. So long as we improve on lap times, complete more laps and run a smooth race.

[The Duckmeister]

I decided to never again come to a race expecting to win, but instead to prepare the best we can, then just turn up to the race, have fun (above all else) , go as hard as we can and see where that leaves us at the end , hopefully in the top 3 or 5.

Take us last year as an example of that. First time over there for us, so we knew the win wasn't going to happen, but with a good team and a well prepared vehicle, and a bit of an idea of how the other teams were shaping up, our thought was that 5th would be a realistic goal. So to take the third in our first visit was beyond our expectations. And to be as close to the others as we were (7 laps from 1st, 5 from 2nd) was a big bonus, so we were quite justifiably stoked with ourselves.

[Tim]

That said, I reckon something north of 460 laps will be needed to win if we go the full 24hrs at pretty much race pace. Anyone else got any guesses on how many laps will be needed to win it? I'll peg 463 as my guess which is an average lap time of around 3:07 including pit stops and which is also well past the 1000km mark.

[Finno]

Yeah Khye, gonna go with tsco's comments here. Fact is we wont win, so to expect to come away with the win (well it'd be fucking nice) is much too ambitious and we'd only end up at the end of the race as failures for not having done so. Certainly if we're outside of the top 10 then questions will need to be raised...

We as a team just need to try our best, and that involves pre-event training, good trike preparation and a solid, clean race strategy. I know its the warm, flakey, cliche stuff that sounds good and all, but its what we need to aim for.