Happy to help! Enough people around here have helped me, so I'm just passing it on.
Sometimes the race wicks are just really dirty. You can wash them (swish them around in hot water and Dawn) or if they're fuzzy, brush off the end with an old toothbrush and put them in backwards from the way they came out, so the cleaner end is sticking out. Sometimes, though, they're beyond saving, and it's just easier to make new ones.