For the IHSR season opener on October 3, six participants braved drenching rain from Hurricane Joaquin to reach Keith’s house in Gaithersburg and arrived to find the Judge himself, looking hale, hearty, and happy to be racing model cars again.

Craig was a first-timer at this track, which as everyone should remember, was originally designed by Jim, built by Alan S., transported from Baltimore to Gaithersburg by Keith and Yr Fthfl Srvnt, and reassembled, extended, and landscaped by Keith. Here, Craig and Porsche Joe are learning and relearning the track, respectively, with both looking rather somber in the process. (It was okay: we all had a great time!)

I should add that when Craig first came in to practice, he set six or seven cars wheels-down on Keith’s nice green-grass landscaping. He quickly discovered that said grass tends to stick to slot car tires much better than it does to the trackside!
With rules changes in place for the Vintage Sports Cars, this would be our first experience with the mandated 14k motors, narrower width limit, and 1962 cutoff on eligible cars. Ron produced this beautiful 1957 Maserati 450S from his racing box and set about turning excellent lap times. In fairness, these times were about 0.5 second slower than last season’s best, reflecting the general desire to slow down the “older” class compared to the more modern cars.

Joe had spent additional time tweaking his Porsche Carrera Speedster. It continued to look great but handled only a bit better than it did last Spring. The original 1:1 version of this car was raced by my old acquaintance Bruce Jennings, and I remember watching it circulate at the Marlboro Speedway back in the day. Another acquaintance, Dave Coleman, owns the car currently, and I would guess that it’s worth about $2 million to $3 million in today’s classic car market.

Joe ended up lending the Speedster to Craig for the race, while he ran this nifty Porsche 550 Spyder.

Keith decided to try stuffing a sidewinder Slot-It HRS “slimline” chassis under an MRRC Cobra body, with excellent results. It’s a great-looking car and ran reasonably well, even on standard Sebring tires. (And yes, 289 Cobra’s first raced in 1962!)

With my ferocious Cobra Daytona coupe now banished to the 1963-1981 Classic Sports Racing category, I decided to try an all-out effort to optimize a largely stock Ninco Classic for the vintage class. Accordingly, I took my venerable 1956 Corvette, replaced the wimpy 18k Pioneer “Typhoon” motor with an even wimpier 14k H&R “Jack Rabbit,” added new gears and new rear wheels and tires, and fashioned rudimentary front axle stops to reduce travel from about 1 inch to maybe 1/16 inch. Oh, and I also lightened the interior as much as possible—I felt like a malevolent surgeon, using a Dremel to grind away much of the driver’s backside!

With a total of six participants, four of whom would be driving at a time, that left two for marshalling a large track. Despite our inherent ineptness, we did a pretty good job of running back and forth and retrieving errant cars. Craig quickly established the “gentleman’s standard of behavior” in the first heat, pausing while racing on blue to retrieve cars that crashed beneath the overpass. (The rest of us were very impressed with his sportsmanlike action, but we somehow seemed much less alert to others’ crashes while we were on blue…
It quickly became apparent that Ron’s Maserati was dang quick. Moreover, he had the unfortunate ability to drive it extremely well, leaving the rest of us in the dust! Keith, Joe, and I all had best laps in the same neighborhood, although Joe’s Spyder looked like quite a handful to run. The maximum track width (from outside-to-outside of the tires) is now 2¼ inches, down from 2½ inches last season. At about 1 7/8 inches, the vintage Porsches were a handful. Especially given the 5-minute heats that Keith had advertently or inadvertently set for the race-management software!
Craig’s loaner Porsche Speedster suffered from an even narrower track and shorter wheelbase. Still, he gave Team Owner Joe a run for his money. Bruce has several slot cars of the right vintage, but they’re mostly hors de combat, plus he didn’t have any 14k motors. Keith loaned him his Carrera Panamerica Corvette, and Bruce enjoyed hustling it around the track.
I couldn’t stay with Ron, but I had a great time dicing with Keith. We had many side-by-side battles, with Keith pulling ahead on certain sections of the track and me gaining back on others. At some point, he let slip that he could take the “Big Bend” turn flat out on the blue lane. I couldn’t bring myself to try it, but I definitely started going in faster than before. Great fun!
At the end of the race, Ron prevailed by 4 laps over my Corvette, which in turn finished a whopping 10 inches ahead of the Judge’s Cobra! At the start of the last heat, I thought I had a full lap lead on Keith, but it was actually only about 10 feet. (My car had just crossed Start/Finish at the end of the prior heat, while Keith’s was on the main straight without having crossed yet.) When the power went off at the end of the race, Keith’s slippery Cobra coasted a good 5 feet and nearly went past my ‘Vette. That was a little too close!

The “short wheelbase crowd” (Joe and Craig) were a bit farther back, with Bruce filling out the finishing order. The full results looked like this. For comparison, the Vintage Sports Car lap record from last season was 6.87 seconds, set by Hayes with his Lola T-70 roadster.


To date, then, a Racer Maserati with lightened body and interior, track at the max, and NSR(?) tires looks like the hot ticket. But we’ll need to wait to see what Sherman comes up with before jumping to conclusions.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Ron might have finished with a bigger lead except for one notable action during his first heat. He crashed at the underpass chicane, where there was no marshall. Although a “Track!” call was warranted, Ron’s first instinct was instead to marshall his own car. Since there were three competitors standing between him and his car, he elected to get down on his hands and knees and crawl underneath their controller wires to reach his car! Ron was nimble, and Ron was quick, but his effort still cost him at least a lap or two. From then on, we all learned to just reach over and whack the space bar whenever we crashed in a marshall-free zone. Ultra-competitive drivers soon learned to hit the space bar even when a marshall was nearby. I won’t mention any names—this time!
After the first race, several people commented about how much fun it was to race on the Piste Martini. It’s a “flowing” circuit, without any awkward or contrived sections, but it still demands just the right touch to maximize speed on one lane versus another and to negotiate the challenging decreasing-radius turn leading onto the main straight. Well done Jim, Alan, and Keith!
Next up was our new-for-2015 Carrera GT class. We were all looking forward to this virtually bone-stock class, where all the parts must be the as-delivered originals. Tire-truing, weight, and minor sanding for body float are the only adjustments allowed. I opted for a BMW Z4 GT3 car, naturally…

…while Craig’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 looked right at home. Carrera has a seemingly endless catalog of cars that are eligible for this class, most with multiple liveries available.

As we all know, Ron absolutely loves the Carrera DTM cars, and we anticipated that he would have something very strong for this class. Wild rumors had been circulating all morning: “Ron probably put every one of his Carrera motors on the dyno and selected the very best!” Or “Ron undoubtedly weighed the frames, axles, hubs, bodies, interiors, braids,, gearshift levers, and windshield wipers, picking out the lightest ones to use!” Or “Ohmygosh, I think Ron soaked his rear tires in a mixture of Gatorade and lysergic acid diethylamide for an entire week!” Although only a few of these rumors were actually true, Ron’s Ferrari 458 was super hooked-up in practice. It cornered on rails and gave away nothing on the straights.
Nonetheless, let the Official Record for All Time show that Yr Fthfl Srvnt actually won the inaugural first heat for the Carrera GT class, beating Ron in the process! Three cheers! (Okay, I’ll settle for one cheer or even a “Lucky bum!” comment…
) But at the end of that heat, Ron noticed that my lap count was clearly wrong, and it turned out that my car’s braid weren’t pulled down far enough to reliably signal the dead strip at Start/Finish. Oh well—but I’ll remind everyone of my grand success at every opportunity anyway!
In fact, once we restarted the heat the racing was very close. Ron had lost some of his grip somewhere between practice and the race, while Keith had improved his laptimes by muttering magical incantations over his Z4. Joe’s street Porsche 918 was definitely a little slow launching out of the corners for some reason, but his laptimes were still pretty decent, and Craig’s Aston was doing well, too.
We had 2 minutes in-between heats, and on one occasion Ron spent so much time cleaning his tires that he barely made it back to the driver’s station in time. In his rush to pick up the controller, he inadvertently hit one of the function keys on the race-management laptop, sending the race results into an Unknown Space. With more incantations, Keith managed to retrieve everything, and all was well.
Tire cleaning seemed important for these cars. At the end of one heat, Keith’s and my Z4’s were parked exactly next to each other. While I was cleaning my tires, Keith asked if I would clean his, too. I said “Sure” and asked how much time was left. He responded “20 seconds,” so I hustled to finish and get back to the station. I didn’t quite make it, however—and that rascally Judge drove away the moment the power went back on, without waiting for his generous benefactor! (I’m pretty sure I would have done the same thing, but perhaps without the maniacal laughter…
)
After two very close heats, Ron regained his missing traction and proceeded to motor off into the distance. Not by a lot, however: he finished 2 laps ahead of my Z4 and 3 laps ahead of Keith’s. It was good, close racing, and the top five finishers had best laps within about 0.7 second of each other. Read ‘em and weep:


Lunch featured some really outstanding pizza and a Formula 1 race on Keith’s DVR. Here, Ron is looking nonchalant (or is that “sleepy”?), while Craig relaxes and Bruce ponders the Meaning of Life.

A couple of seasons ago, The Doctor (a.k.a. Sherm) showed up with an Avant Slot Mirage for the Classic Sports Racing category. It proved to be so astonishingly fast that he immediately parked it and chose to race other cars so that the mere mortals among us might have a fighting chance. (Of course, he’s continued to win a number of these races anyway, driving things like an old Fly Ferrari.) However, first Hayes bought a Mirage, then me, and now Ron. They’re wicked fast with foam tires and a harder motor pod; otherwise virtually no other mod’s are needed.
The 1963-1981 race quickly turned into a Mirage rout, with Ron and me running our cars and Keith running Ron’s spare. Team Keech also had a speedy NSR Porsche 917 in the field, with Craig at the wheel. Joe ran his Porsche 917-10 short-wheelbase Spyder, while Bruce fielded his newly painted and assembled Slot-It Ford GT40. It was a formidable field.
After the first heat, Bruce checked his lap count and said “What, 32 laps? That can’t be right! I mean, I’m not that fast!” We all had a good laugh with him, but the reality was that he had indeed been hustling the GT40 around quite quickly.
Joe’s 917 Spyder looked skittish at the limit, while Craig’s 917 coupe was corning almost on rails. It didn’t have quite the straight-line speed of the Mirages, however. Ron and I had a couple of really fun side-by-side episodes, learning how difficult it can be to pass another car at Piste Martini when the speeds are so high. But while we were battling, that sneaky Judge had put his head down and was lapping at an incredible pace—and without coming off the track, either. At the finish, he won by 5 laps over team owner Ron, who in turn was 4 laps ahead of me.


For technically curious readers, here are the underpinnings of the three Mirages. The first- and third-place cars both had aluminum motor pods, while Ron’s second-place finisher used the stock pod and a chunk of lead at the front to deal with wheelstanding tendencies. All three cars have standard Scale Auto wheels and foam tires, stock motors, axles, gears, and guides. Only my car, however, has a strip of Sherm’s Magical Green Tape.

Our last race of the day was for the Slot-It Group C cars. This is also a spec class, with few modifications allowed and mandatory use of either Slot-It F22 or N22 tires. Craig had this very nice-looking Porsche 962, and it ran very well.

Joe finally had a class where he could run a nice, wide Porsche with a reasonably long wheelbase. His 962C looked great and was really fast. He gave it an excellent drive, jumping into the lead right from the drop of the flag. He was easily fending off his competitors (including me, dang it!)—but then Ron rotated in. After a few laps acclimating, Ron began reeling Joe in.
Meanwhile, I was discovering—the hard way—that even N22’s will pick up trackside grass on the tires, if you happen to stray in that direction. And it’s hard to clean off! My Mazda 787 would go pretty well sans grass, but not nearly so well avec. Craig and I had some good battles, while up front Joe, Keith, and Ron were having a whale of a time, as illustrated by this photo of their “chicanery.” They were having such a good fight that I almost wanted to stop racing and just watch them!

In Joe’s last heat, he had the misfortune of grassing his own rear tires and was faced with the choice: Do I stop during the heat and try to clean them, or do I soldier on for another 4 minutes as fast as I can? He soldiered on, but the damage was done, and Keith snuck by him for second place. Ron grabbed the top spot, while Joe hung on for third. I was lucky to finish fourth, which was a result of Craig’s car problems that cost him a number of laps. Bruce’s venerable Jagermeister Porsche 962 finished out the field.


So, we began the 2015-2016 season with a relatively small turnout but a world-class amount of fun competition. Il Piste Martini looked terrific, with its additional signage and other landscaping, and it was a great place to race. Thanks, Keith, for hosting such a fun event. And don’t forget: You owe me one round of tire cleaning!
Rick F.
PS: I will have to miss your next race, Ron, so be sure to get some photos of the results.

Craig was a first-timer at this track, which as everyone should remember, was originally designed by Jim, built by Alan S., transported from Baltimore to Gaithersburg by Keith and Yr Fthfl Srvnt, and reassembled, extended, and landscaped by Keith. Here, Craig and Porsche Joe are learning and relearning the track, respectively, with both looking rather somber in the process. (It was okay: we all had a great time!)

I should add that when Craig first came in to practice, he set six or seven cars wheels-down on Keith’s nice green-grass landscaping. He quickly discovered that said grass tends to stick to slot car tires much better than it does to the trackside!
With rules changes in place for the Vintage Sports Cars, this would be our first experience with the mandated 14k motors, narrower width limit, and 1962 cutoff on eligible cars. Ron produced this beautiful 1957 Maserati 450S from his racing box and set about turning excellent lap times. In fairness, these times were about 0.5 second slower than last season’s best, reflecting the general desire to slow down the “older” class compared to the more modern cars.

Joe had spent additional time tweaking his Porsche Carrera Speedster. It continued to look great but handled only a bit better than it did last Spring. The original 1:1 version of this car was raced by my old acquaintance Bruce Jennings, and I remember watching it circulate at the Marlboro Speedway back in the day. Another acquaintance, Dave Coleman, owns the car currently, and I would guess that it’s worth about $2 million to $3 million in today’s classic car market.

Joe ended up lending the Speedster to Craig for the race, while he ran this nifty Porsche 550 Spyder.

Keith decided to try stuffing a sidewinder Slot-It HRS “slimline” chassis under an MRRC Cobra body, with excellent results. It’s a great-looking car and ran reasonably well, even on standard Sebring tires. (And yes, 289 Cobra’s first raced in 1962!)

With my ferocious Cobra Daytona coupe now banished to the 1963-1981 Classic Sports Racing category, I decided to try an all-out effort to optimize a largely stock Ninco Classic for the vintage class. Accordingly, I took my venerable 1956 Corvette, replaced the wimpy 18k Pioneer “Typhoon” motor with an even wimpier 14k H&R “Jack Rabbit,” added new gears and new rear wheels and tires, and fashioned rudimentary front axle stops to reduce travel from about 1 inch to maybe 1/16 inch. Oh, and I also lightened the interior as much as possible—I felt like a malevolent surgeon, using a Dremel to grind away much of the driver’s backside!

With a total of six participants, four of whom would be driving at a time, that left two for marshalling a large track. Despite our inherent ineptness, we did a pretty good job of running back and forth and retrieving errant cars. Craig quickly established the “gentleman’s standard of behavior” in the first heat, pausing while racing on blue to retrieve cars that crashed beneath the overpass. (The rest of us were very impressed with his sportsmanlike action, but we somehow seemed much less alert to others’ crashes while we were on blue…
It quickly became apparent that Ron’s Maserati was dang quick. Moreover, he had the unfortunate ability to drive it extremely well, leaving the rest of us in the dust! Keith, Joe, and I all had best laps in the same neighborhood, although Joe’s Spyder looked like quite a handful to run. The maximum track width (from outside-to-outside of the tires) is now 2¼ inches, down from 2½ inches last season. At about 1 7/8 inches, the vintage Porsches were a handful. Especially given the 5-minute heats that Keith had advertently or inadvertently set for the race-management software!
Craig’s loaner Porsche Speedster suffered from an even narrower track and shorter wheelbase. Still, he gave Team Owner Joe a run for his money. Bruce has several slot cars of the right vintage, but they’re mostly hors de combat, plus he didn’t have any 14k motors. Keith loaned him his Carrera Panamerica Corvette, and Bruce enjoyed hustling it around the track.
I couldn’t stay with Ron, but I had a great time dicing with Keith. We had many side-by-side battles, with Keith pulling ahead on certain sections of the track and me gaining back on others. At some point, he let slip that he could take the “Big Bend” turn flat out on the blue lane. I couldn’t bring myself to try it, but I definitely started going in faster than before. Great fun!
At the end of the race, Ron prevailed by 4 laps over my Corvette, which in turn finished a whopping 10 inches ahead of the Judge’s Cobra! At the start of the last heat, I thought I had a full lap lead on Keith, but it was actually only about 10 feet. (My car had just crossed Start/Finish at the end of the prior heat, while Keith’s was on the main straight without having crossed yet.) When the power went off at the end of the race, Keith’s slippery Cobra coasted a good 5 feet and nearly went past my ‘Vette. That was a little too close!

The “short wheelbase crowd” (Joe and Craig) were a bit farther back, with Bruce filling out the finishing order. The full results looked like this. For comparison, the Vintage Sports Car lap record from last season was 6.87 seconds, set by Hayes with his Lola T-70 roadster.


To date, then, a Racer Maserati with lightened body and interior, track at the max, and NSR(?) tires looks like the hot ticket. But we’ll need to wait to see what Sherman comes up with before jumping to conclusions.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Ron might have finished with a bigger lead except for one notable action during his first heat. He crashed at the underpass chicane, where there was no marshall. Although a “Track!” call was warranted, Ron’s first instinct was instead to marshall his own car. Since there were three competitors standing between him and his car, he elected to get down on his hands and knees and crawl underneath their controller wires to reach his car! Ron was nimble, and Ron was quick, but his effort still cost him at least a lap or two. From then on, we all learned to just reach over and whack the space bar whenever we crashed in a marshall-free zone. Ultra-competitive drivers soon learned to hit the space bar even when a marshall was nearby. I won’t mention any names—this time!
After the first race, several people commented about how much fun it was to race on the Piste Martini. It’s a “flowing” circuit, without any awkward or contrived sections, but it still demands just the right touch to maximize speed on one lane versus another and to negotiate the challenging decreasing-radius turn leading onto the main straight. Well done Jim, Alan, and Keith!
Next up was our new-for-2015 Carrera GT class. We were all looking forward to this virtually bone-stock class, where all the parts must be the as-delivered originals. Tire-truing, weight, and minor sanding for body float are the only adjustments allowed. I opted for a BMW Z4 GT3 car, naturally…

…while Craig’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 looked right at home. Carrera has a seemingly endless catalog of cars that are eligible for this class, most with multiple liveries available.

As we all know, Ron absolutely loves the Carrera DTM cars, and we anticipated that he would have something very strong for this class. Wild rumors had been circulating all morning: “Ron probably put every one of his Carrera motors on the dyno and selected the very best!” Or “Ron undoubtedly weighed the frames, axles, hubs, bodies, interiors, braids,, gearshift levers, and windshield wipers, picking out the lightest ones to use!” Or “Ohmygosh, I think Ron soaked his rear tires in a mixture of Gatorade and lysergic acid diethylamide for an entire week!” Although only a few of these rumors were actually true, Ron’s Ferrari 458 was super hooked-up in practice. It cornered on rails and gave away nothing on the straights.
Nonetheless, let the Official Record for All Time show that Yr Fthfl Srvnt actually won the inaugural first heat for the Carrera GT class, beating Ron in the process! Three cheers! (Okay, I’ll settle for one cheer or even a “Lucky bum!” comment…
In fact, once we restarted the heat the racing was very close. Ron had lost some of his grip somewhere between practice and the race, while Keith had improved his laptimes by muttering magical incantations over his Z4. Joe’s street Porsche 918 was definitely a little slow launching out of the corners for some reason, but his laptimes were still pretty decent, and Craig’s Aston was doing well, too.
We had 2 minutes in-between heats, and on one occasion Ron spent so much time cleaning his tires that he barely made it back to the driver’s station in time. In his rush to pick up the controller, he inadvertently hit one of the function keys on the race-management laptop, sending the race results into an Unknown Space. With more incantations, Keith managed to retrieve everything, and all was well.
Tire cleaning seemed important for these cars. At the end of one heat, Keith’s and my Z4’s were parked exactly next to each other. While I was cleaning my tires, Keith asked if I would clean his, too. I said “Sure” and asked how much time was left. He responded “20 seconds,” so I hustled to finish and get back to the station. I didn’t quite make it, however—and that rascally Judge drove away the moment the power went back on, without waiting for his generous benefactor! (I’m pretty sure I would have done the same thing, but perhaps without the maniacal laughter…
After two very close heats, Ron regained his missing traction and proceeded to motor off into the distance. Not by a lot, however: he finished 2 laps ahead of my Z4 and 3 laps ahead of Keith’s. It was good, close racing, and the top five finishers had best laps within about 0.7 second of each other. Read ‘em and weep:


Lunch featured some really outstanding pizza and a Formula 1 race on Keith’s DVR. Here, Ron is looking nonchalant (or is that “sleepy”?), while Craig relaxes and Bruce ponders the Meaning of Life.

A couple of seasons ago, The Doctor (a.k.a. Sherm) showed up with an Avant Slot Mirage for the Classic Sports Racing category. It proved to be so astonishingly fast that he immediately parked it and chose to race other cars so that the mere mortals among us might have a fighting chance. (Of course, he’s continued to win a number of these races anyway, driving things like an old Fly Ferrari.) However, first Hayes bought a Mirage, then me, and now Ron. They’re wicked fast with foam tires and a harder motor pod; otherwise virtually no other mod’s are needed.
The 1963-1981 race quickly turned into a Mirage rout, with Ron and me running our cars and Keith running Ron’s spare. Team Keech also had a speedy NSR Porsche 917 in the field, with Craig at the wheel. Joe ran his Porsche 917-10 short-wheelbase Spyder, while Bruce fielded his newly painted and assembled Slot-It Ford GT40. It was a formidable field.
After the first heat, Bruce checked his lap count and said “What, 32 laps? That can’t be right! I mean, I’m not that fast!” We all had a good laugh with him, but the reality was that he had indeed been hustling the GT40 around quite quickly.
Joe’s 917 Spyder looked skittish at the limit, while Craig’s 917 coupe was corning almost on rails. It didn’t have quite the straight-line speed of the Mirages, however. Ron and I had a couple of really fun side-by-side episodes, learning how difficult it can be to pass another car at Piste Martini when the speeds are so high. But while we were battling, that sneaky Judge had put his head down and was lapping at an incredible pace—and without coming off the track, either. At the finish, he won by 5 laps over team owner Ron, who in turn was 4 laps ahead of me.


For technically curious readers, here are the underpinnings of the three Mirages. The first- and third-place cars both had aluminum motor pods, while Ron’s second-place finisher used the stock pod and a chunk of lead at the front to deal with wheelstanding tendencies. All three cars have standard Scale Auto wheels and foam tires, stock motors, axles, gears, and guides. Only my car, however, has a strip of Sherm’s Magical Green Tape.

Our last race of the day was for the Slot-It Group C cars. This is also a spec class, with few modifications allowed and mandatory use of either Slot-It F22 or N22 tires. Craig had this very nice-looking Porsche 962, and it ran very well.

Joe finally had a class where he could run a nice, wide Porsche with a reasonably long wheelbase. His 962C looked great and was really fast. He gave it an excellent drive, jumping into the lead right from the drop of the flag. He was easily fending off his competitors (including me, dang it!)—but then Ron rotated in. After a few laps acclimating, Ron began reeling Joe in.
Meanwhile, I was discovering—the hard way—that even N22’s will pick up trackside grass on the tires, if you happen to stray in that direction. And it’s hard to clean off! My Mazda 787 would go pretty well sans grass, but not nearly so well avec. Craig and I had some good battles, while up front Joe, Keith, and Ron were having a whale of a time, as illustrated by this photo of their “chicanery.” They were having such a good fight that I almost wanted to stop racing and just watch them!

In Joe’s last heat, he had the misfortune of grassing his own rear tires and was faced with the choice: Do I stop during the heat and try to clean them, or do I soldier on for another 4 minutes as fast as I can? He soldiered on, but the damage was done, and Keith snuck by him for second place. Ron grabbed the top spot, while Joe hung on for third. I was lucky to finish fourth, which was a result of Craig’s car problems that cost him a number of laps. Bruce’s venerable Jagermeister Porsche 962 finished out the field.


So, we began the 2015-2016 season with a relatively small turnout but a world-class amount of fun competition. Il Piste Martini looked terrific, with its additional signage and other landscaping, and it was a great place to race. Thanks, Keith, for hosting such a fun event. And don’t forget: You owe me one round of tire cleaning!
Rick F.
PS: I will have to miss your next race, Ron, so be sure to get some photos of the results.

