INDUSTRY ENTREPRENEURS SET A NEW STANDARD: LCT would like to extend special appreciation to all five LCT Great Limo Race contestants -- Ric, Becky, Georgia, Debbie, and Brad -- for taking the time to share their business lives with the industry and the wider world for the last 18 months. We hope all of you get the positive exposure you richly deserve. The Great Limo Race and this blog served as an experiment of sorts: To get five fairly new limousine operators to post candidly about their new business challenges. We will announce a technical race "winner" in the upcoming September issue of LCT Magazine. But the real takeaway lesson here is that all five contestants "won," given that their businesses are still standing and growing after three of the toughest years the chauffeured transportation industry has ever seen. More fair-weathered and faint-hearted businesspeople would have simply folded. Their blog updates stand as a first draft reality account of making it in the chauffeured business world, and we hope their stories can help and inspire new operators for years to come. -- Martin Romjue, LCT editor