It was no secret that US Sailing's Olympic Sailing Committee was looking for light air venues when they decided to conduct most of their trials for the US Olympic Team in Southern California in October. At the dress rehearsal held this past weekend for the Star Class at the California YC in Marina del Rey, they got exactly what they were hoping for -- plus a couple of bonus features, like fog that caused one race to be abandoned, and even a few whitecaps to let the crews stretch-out their mini-hiking muscles. But for the most part, the racing was sailed in four to seven knots of shifty breeze - conditions that George Szabo and his crew Mark Strube very obviously enjoyed. They won the first race and were never headed in the standings. With finishes of 1-2-2-3-3-[12]-6 in the 23-boat fleet, they handily won the event by ten points.

The team of Andy Horton and Brad Nichol had never raced in Marina del Rey before, and got off to a somewhat sluggish start in the three races on Friday. However, they proved to be very fast learners and finished the final four races in single digits (including two bullets) to capture second place - five points ahead of Andy McDonald/ Brian Fatih. John MacCausland/ Robert Schofield finished fourth with Jim Buckingham/ Mike Dorgan in fifth. None of the competitors used a 'single-digit' finish as a discard.