Racetrack Rug

I've had the pattern for this racetrack rug bookmarked for a while. My husband and I picked out some little wooden cars to give our two year-old for Christmas, so I decided that now was a good time to get it done.
I started following the pattern according to her directions. I kept thinking that I wished the rug was thicker, but didn't want to have to deal with trying to make up my own version of the pattern. After about 10 rows, I gave in and took it apart.
I used two strands of thread and a size K hook. I wrote down what I did and planned on sharing it. The only problem is that I have some lumpy parts and other little issues that make it an imperfect pattern. I decided (since I'm not planning on making another one of these just to perfect the pattern....) to tell you to follow Cynthia Rae's pattern and give you a few hints.
 

1. She has you chain one at the beginning of each row and then slip stitch at the end. It seemed like that made the one end of my track a little bigger than the other. I would just leave out the chain and work in a continuous round.
 

2. My first row of grass seemed to make the rug really lumpy. If you have this problem, don't go on and hope that the rug will flatten out. It won't Go back and take out a few of those stitches. I know it will be painful - but you'll be glad you did. I sure wished I had.
 

3. There's a lot of counting in this pattern. To ease the need of keeping track of every stitch, I placed stitch markers (paper clips) at the beginning of each curve. Then, after I had counted my curves, I could just crochet the straight parts without needing to count them; I had a stopper to remind me when to start paying attention again.