I use one of those really long "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" banners attached to mine instead of the little boot that alot of people use.  I had a Pulsar that I lost airspeed on twice.  Finally figured out that water was wicking into the static port on the fuselage.  I generally know where the winds are from, and use my GPS for groundspeed as a reference.  I also kept the speed up on those approaches, not too terribly fast, but up.
Glad you're OK, but it still sucks.  I operate out of a 3000 ft field and can imagine how hard it would be to slow that thing down after deciding to abort.  And after racing motorcycles professionally for a while I can vouch for how crappy skinny tires work under braking during offroad excursions.


Steve Reeves
Glasair I FT 343ND
AMA 250 GP #93 ;)