It should have been. It wasn't, because I was still in the process of running my final Kamikaze run, so the Hauler run started before midnight but extended well beyond. And then the game froze (and my PC aswell) and I couldn't start another attempt. But I guess that's my fault for relying on last minute attempts; those usually end either in explosions or slower times anyways.
But even the real Kamikaze runs (I mean those ending in a rebuy screen) were loads of fun. I mean: What could go wrong with boosting into a station with G5DD Thrusters? Surprisingly little if you add (surprisingly weak) shields. I guess the Courier is pretty much the ideal ship for this due to the strong shields and also easily optimizable for top speed while still having good jump range due to it's low weight (as compared to the Viper which requires big compromises). Also the long nose makes for an excellent crumple zone.
When I saw the numbers for the Kamikaze time bonus I quickly realized speed was key - and then shuddered at the thought what Bruski would make out of this - rightly so, it turns out.
The Hauler Class in comparison was pretty straightforward, although the different SC approaches made for some nice variation and quite a few of them were difficult to get just right. There were also many opportunities for error, from the classic station overshoot to pesky planetary rings in the way. The two locations in Pleione were also an interesting problem: supercruise between them or jump out and back in? I didn't do detailed testing, but it appeared to save around 15 seconds to jump out directly from Squirrels Nest to another waypoint (in my case Obsidian Orbital in Maia) and then jump back to Pleione for Stargazer. In the end I didn't manage to nail all approaches in one single run, although I was very lucky that all of my (few) attempts were uninterrupted by hyper- or interdictions.
For those who might be interested, the videos of my Hauler and Courier Kamikaze runs are
here and
here.
Thanks again to Raiko for setting up this race and kudos for the interesting race course and creative shenanigans! I had completely forgotten how much I've missed racing in the past few months and I hope I'll be participating more frequently in the future again.
Congrats to Darplata, Aken and Bruski; but really to anyone who took part! It's always cool to see how the fastest times on the board improve over the course of a race. At first, some numbers might feel impossible to reach, and at the end of the week there are multiple racers within seconds of each other, always trying to squeeze another few fractions of a minute out of their ships. But it's also great to see how everybody is improving their own personal time. Because how many people have already written: It doesn't have to be the top of the leaderboard, because everybody is a better pilot at the end. And racing a Type 10 can be just as much fun as trying to set a new overall record with whatever seems to be the optimal ship for the job. That comes down to planning, preparation and a good deal of experience and practice. And always a bit of luck to avoid being noticed by insectoid racing fans...
(although I will be giving a heads up here about where to keep an eye out for them, and when, closer to the time) ... and also, the race won't be prescribing a fixed set of waypoints 
but will require you to do some research prior to launch 
(so the quicker you get your hands on the aforementioned publication the more time you'll have to prepare!) That's right folks, I'm gonna be making you do some work for this one! (I think it'll be worth it tho).