During the third of four laps I had the headline all written; "Nathan holds off a challenge from Mike Vigers, and Amy holds off a challenge from John Crimaldi." But John was resurgent in the last lap, and managed to overtake Amy, in spite of running into some traffic. Amy figured it really meant a lot to him, and said she didn't go quite as hard at the end as if it had been Lenka she was up against. Meanwhile, as Mike pointed out, with Lenka undefeated against Crimaldi, and John pulling out the tight victory of Amy, we may have to credit Lenka with a tick mark in the win column against the Caldwells. Actually, that's stupid. You have to be there to win, Lenka, so get healthy before Amy gets any faster!

At the front of the race Nathan looked in-control against Mike-the-ski-wraith-Vigers, our local junior superstar who has spent most of the season trying to haul his butt back from a state of eggregious overtraining. It was a good confidence boost for Nathan as he heads toward his top-secret objective. It appears that training and preparation are on-track.

So, no free race wax jobs will be handed out anytime soon. The one exception may be Nate Brown, who might get a sympathy wax job or two if he keeps spending all his time and energy waxing other people's skis instead of getting ready to race. But Nate might be catching on to the folly of racing as a second workout, or staying up until 11:00 in the wax room the night before the race. So we'll just see how it shakes out.