Trackinfo greyhound

I’m Lauren and my greyhound is Sawyer! He has been with me about three years and I’ve started trying to understand his stats from his one and only race, but they look a bit different than others. Perhaps someone here can help?
Here’s his track info link!
Also his parents are Jacks Big Lad and Chase the Sneak, if there are any siblings around!

Simple dog cheered his friend, Rag Time Eddy on in his race last night. Eddy finished on the board in third place. Good boy!
Simple Dog is all Team Eddy in his club hat
This is the link to Rag Time Eddy's race last night. He is the 1 dog in the red blanket

Here's his history. http://www.trackinfo.com/dog.jsp?runnername=WKL+Ajax
I've found a few explanations of how to read a race card, but there are a few things I'm not understanding.
1) How many races has he run? TrackInfo says:

Starts: WS - 43 - 4 - 8 - 8 - 10

Is this saying he ran 43 races total, in which he took first 4 times, second 8 times, third 8 times and fourth 10 times? If so, why does his history have 4 pages of 15 races and 1 page of 10 races (for a total of 70 races)?
2) The names of the first three placing dogs in a race never seems to include my dog's name, even when I think the results say he placed in the first three.

2008-02-08 A12 WS 550 F 30.88 79.0 2 4 4 2 1 1 30.88 7.50 Determined winner B "Power Built" "Kiowa Easy Edge" "Wheatland Jana" 8

3) Are the comments specific to the race as a whole, or to the dog?
Edit: think I figured this out. The race results on Greyhound-Data has comments for EACH DOG when the race is viewed in "full". That same comment shows up on Trackinfo.com for my dog for that same race.
4) What does it mean to take, for example, 2.5 place?

2008-02-01 A9 WS 550 F 31.08 79.0 4 1 4 3 1 2.5 31.08 6.00 Came flying home,mid C Kaia Pikes Gucci San Tan Calliope 8

Edit: I misinterpreted the 2.5 number as 2.5 place, when it really meant he won the race by 2.5 lengths. The previous number (1) indicated his finish position.

It has been exactly a month since we adopted our newest family member, Kuiper! Kuiper, a former racing greyhound (who was named "Bella Kingo") raced his last race on March 24, 2012 and arrived at our house on July 1st. One of the things that I really enjoy about retired racing is the amount of information that you can find out about him. Here is some of the fun stuff!
As with most retired racers, we are able to trace his whole pedigree, including 33 generations on his sire line and 28 generations on his dam line. It's crazy to think that I can find his ancestors back in the early 1800's when I am unable to find some of my own family!
Kuiper was an "above average" racer, entering 102 races (although racing in 100) and coming in first place 18 times. About 80% of the dogs race between 30 and 60 races, so he did alright for himself. He spent a good chunk of his time during his second year racing at Grade AA before descending to grade C and retiring a couple months before his 4th birthday. He raced all of his races at 548 yards at Wheeling Downs Casino in West Virginia.
Here are two of my favorite races of his:

• 1. This is his earliest 1st place win that we were able to watch on video. Kuiper (Bella Kingo) is number 3 in the white.
• 2. This is one of the best races he had. This is a grade AA race in Wheeling last spring. Here he is racing in the #1 box and is wearing red.

Getting him settled in his home was quite an adventure. We had to teach him to play with toys - he now loves ANYTHING that squeaks and will squeak it until it breaks. He was terrified of our cats the first couple weeks, but now they are both completely indifferent to each other. Luckily he's not scared at loud noises or storms as we have been remodeling our home and have had quite a few bad storms over the last month.
We also learned a lot about food and have said the word "poop" more in the last month then my whole life combined. We started on a Costco Premium food at the recommendation of another greyhound owner, but Kuiper just did not do that well with it. So, we decided to switch and tried Orijen and have never been more pleased. Talk about a dog with a good poop! We could play catch with them! LOL, I'm guessing if you own a grey you understand my enthusiasm!
Yesterday we celebrated his fourth birthday and he, of course, spent it like we expected. Between two cats and the new dog, our couch is almost never empty anymore! Tomorrow we are going to meet with our trainer for the first time and do an assessment to see if it is viable to pursue training as a therapy dog. I'm really excited, so we'll see how our boy does!