Most people would ask “Why fix a good thing if it isn’t broken?” but for Stanford men’s crew, the answer is simple: to make it better.

After the No. 8 Cardinal’s disappointing third place finish at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, the men’s varsity eight surges into today’s first heat of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Regatta with a new set-up, outlook and attitude.

Racing on nearby Lake Natoma on May 13, the Cardinal could not keep pace with its top Pac-10 rivals, Washington and California. The undefeated and top-ranked Huskies pulled off a tight victory in the final, just 1.6 seconds ahead of the No. 3 Golden Bears, who finished a full 5.2 seconds ahead of Stanford.

Disappointed in its speed and slow start the Cardinal lost a full two seconds within the first 500 meters of the 2,000-meter race it was back to the drawing board for the past few weeks in preparation for the national championships.

While senior Donny Simkin noted that the team couldn’t improve its speed as it could have done back in January or February, there was room for revitalization of the team’s unexecuted full abilities.

One way of doing that: switching up the eight.

“It’s a different combination of the same eight people,” Simkin said. “We haven’t had a personnel change, but moving people around gives them a different sense of the boat, and even if they end up in the same part of the boat after a few switch-ups, it at least makes it seem new and fresh again.”

Head coach Craig Amerkhanian wants more out of his crew’s mental outlook, though. The Pac-10 final’s slow start proved to be the Cardinal’s downfall, and the IRA lineup will only be more aggressive from the opening heats.

“The character of the crew is the same,” Amerkhanian said. “I’m just looking for more surge and more impulse from them — and more personality.”

If anything needs to be different as Stanford heads into the three-day competition, it is this mental attitude, the six-year coach added.

He wants the team to have the utmost focus on its approach and technique so that the men “take what the race gives them and go with it.”

Simkin agreed that the Cardinal already has the tools to perform well against top competition. Stanford beat California in April’s San Diego Crew Classic and narrowly defeated another IRA rival, No. 6 Wisconsin, in the Cardinal-hosted Windermere Classic just over a month ago.

“The past few weeks, we’ve been doing our normal training, focusing on our technique, fitness and power,” Simkin said. “Everyone recognizes, though, that we have the physical ability to win. It’s just about getting in the right mindset and putting up with the physical discomfort you have in racing so that you can respond to another team when they move up on you.”

Today’s first heat for the Cardinal will have plenty of teams on Stanford’s tail. On a six-lane course, the eighth-ranked Cardinal will line up against No. 2 Harvard, No. 10 Michigan, No. 13 Boston University, No. 14Pennsylvania and No. 20 Columbia.

Amerkhanian described the Cardinal’s purpose, beyond improving and winning at the IRAs, is to “race outside the region” and stack up against the best of national competition. Today’s heat will be the first taste.

“It’s going to be six lanes, so there’ll be a lot of movement, but we’ll need to keep our focus in the boat and bring out the attitude,” Amerkhanian said. “These kinds of situations necessitate tremendous confidence and trust in each other, as well as will power and aggression.”

The Cardinal believes it possesses that will power and aggression, and the team will have to prove it today.

Should Stanford fail to earn one of the top two finishes, it will enter this afternoon’s repechage as a consolation. The Cardinal hopes to avoid that, but is taking the nationals one race at a time, with even a title in sight. The IRAs are “progressive” — spanning three days — which, according to Simkin, will allow the team to only get better if it goes that far.

“We’d like to be No. 1 in the country, just as we would’ve liked to have won the Pac-10,” Simkin said. “But that at least puts us coming in as the underdogs again, so there’s no pressure. We’ve had substantial losses, but we’ve also had our share of wins, and no one’s going to be expecting us to come out like we will [today].”