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Thank you Monte!

Dang! Actually, it was the end of August I was worried about. I will be celebrating 40 wonderful years of marriage with my beautiful wife on a cross-Canada rail trip. Hopefully, the wildfires will be all gone by then...

Same as it ever was

The sound of gunfire
Out in the distance
I'm getting used to that now....

I'll be the backmarker!

Thanks!

Sounds good to me.

The biggest issue for me is time and the drive. It takes a good 2+ hours to drive to Al's on a Thursday from my house, and the traffic is awful. I always have the intention to show up on Thursday, but when 3:00 rolls around (the time I usually have to leave to get to Al's by 5:30 or 6), either I'm involved in something at home, or I've forgotten to get ready to go, so just give up. But that's just my reason/excuse for not coming. I don't know what's preventing others—the past "usual suspects"—from showing up like they used to.

Agreed. It's hard enough preparing a car for a single class, let alone for all the ones we run. But does that answer the issue of non-attendance? I know for me, sometimes it's a bit tough making the drive to Portland with what I have to do here in Newberg (Airbnb guests, goats and sheep, etc.). We have the Airbnb blocked for the rest of the year, so that won't interfere. I hope to be racing again very soon!

Monte, several of the racers from other teams (that we've had fun with before) mentioned that they missed seeing you there...

So the 24 hour race is over. The Oregon Donors/BC team finished in 6th place (out of 9), which was actually pretty good considering that we had teammates who had never run the track before. The team consisted of me (Stan), Darren, his son Damian, Ray (who has raced with us before), Jake (from Tualatin), and Alwyn (known as "SuperSlab" on the forums). Darren and Alwyn also raced for a team called "CanAm" that finished in 3rd place. The car (a silver BRM Ferrari 512) was prepared by Darren and another CanAm team member named Dwayne to a really splendid performance. We only had to change braids and tires once, so very few pit stops. For the most part, racing was pretty non-eventful as far as we were concerned; no "offs" to the floor or hard crashes, unlike what happened for other teams. We lost the exhaust detail from a rather tame rear-end, but that was the only real damage the car took.

Damian and Jake had never run the track before, and Damian had not run slot cars for "about 20 years" in his estimation, so their heats were not as successful as we might have hoped. Damian improved markedly over the 24 hours, and Jake was a bit overmatched, but did pretty well considering. We were, in fact, the only team whose performance improved in the second 12-hour session. Had we had a few more drivers of the skill of Darren or Alwyn, our results would have been much better. And if Chris had been able to attend, there's no doubt we would have finished higher.  All in all, an enjoyable time—but we'd love to see more Oregonians next year!