During the mall plan, everybody was looking at the money. In this plan, because of what happened in the mall exercise, people were looking at the impacts . . . and whether they could be mitigated.

We salute our fans for raising this money throughout our 2005 race season. All this money is raised through the generosity of our fans through our 50/50 drawing at each race. I also want to thank the many volunteers that donate their valuable time to run the drawing.

What becomes emblematic is that they raise so much money nobody wants to run against them. It becomes cost prohibitive. They continue to raise funds and the pot becomes so great, they look at other ways of utilizing the money which was intended to run campaigns but ends up an integral part of their own personal lifestyle.

We gave them a run for their money. We really wanted to defend against their three, and I think we did a good job of that.

You don't get points, money or trophies for a good test session. I like to stay even keel and make sure that we have every piece of the jigsaw [puzzle] in proper order when we return here next month.

It does take a bit of money out of their monthly budget ---- not a large bit, but a bit ---- but for someone who has not seen an increase in his pay envelope for a year or two, it can make an already bad situation worse.