Hi everyone,

In preparation for the upcoming race weekend, I wanted to encourage everyone to be extra prepared for the mosquitos.  To put it bluntly, they are HORRIFIC!!  The swarms are instantaneous and relentless.  They have no trouble biting right through a layer of clothing.

My biggest concern is for our amazing corner workers and volunteers.  While so many of us are zooming around the track, you all have to stand around as prime mosquito bait.  That is why I will ensure that each volunteer station will be well prepared to deal with the little bast@&ds.

Here's the plan:

1)  Mike Kaerne has graciously made available to us 4 heavy duty fog machines.  He and I figure that the mosquitos cant bite what they cant see. SOOOOO we will be creating a huge blanket of fog at each turn station so that......errr.....just kidding.  Each day (Thursday - Sunday) we will be loading the fog machines with a solution of fog oil and insecticide.  We will fog all the treed and grassy areas, paying special attention to the areas around each turn station and tire bundles (another reason we need to replace the majority of our tire bundles with new ones that have drainage).

2)  I have over 20 cans of OFF bug spray that will be distributed.  This spray contains DEET, so if any of the workers don't want to use this, please bring an alternative.  Each station will also have a supply of mosquito coils.

3)  Dress for the occasion.  Each volunteer will be supplied with a new long sleeve white shirt.  Please, cover up as much skin as you can.

This is about all we can do to fight the mosquitos, save for bringing in a giant colony of bats to help eat them all.  I will be working closely with META and race control, monitoring the situation.  It's my hope that we can do more frequent rotation of the corner workers so that the same people are not stuck in the really bad areas for long periods of time.

As always, I am more than happy to listen to any suggestions or ideas you might have.  Please don't hesitate to talk to me.

Cheers!

Steve