Howdy racers,

Three people get credit for a solution this week. One additional solver submitted the correct answer but felt she had received too many hints and recused herself from credit consideration. There is now a four-way tie for second place in the overall standings.

So, what was going on in this week's puzzle? Solvers were asked to identify "an annual sporting event". Seven clues ended with the phrase "according to the meta answer's official records?", and the answers to these had to be truncated to fit in the grid:

43A) Work as an independent contractor - FREE
45A) Lack of concern - NONCHA
8D) Guinevere's lover - LOT
12D) Lopsidedness - IMBA
30D) A particular mode of speech - PAR
34D) Emergency vehicle - AMBU
49D) Drained an infected swelling with a needle - D A BOIL

What did all of these have in common? The word "lance" had been redacted from each:

free-LANCE
noncha-LANCE
LANCE-lot
imba-LANCE
par-LANCE
ambu-LANCE
LANCE-d a boil

How did this suggest an annual sporting event? Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven years in a row, from 1999 to 2005. However, in 2012 he was stripped of these titles after admitting to doping. Hence, just as Lance was removed as the official winner of seven Tours de France, "lance" was removed from seven words in the grid.

And so the correct meta answer was "Tour de France".

The title, "They're so disarming!", obliquely suggested the solution - the lance being a type of weapon, removing it could be considered a kind of disarmament.