The Washougal howardite is alleged to have struck the earth from a retrograde orbit, with a preatmospheric velocity of 55¿3 km/s. To check this report, we determined the ablation loss of this 0.2-kg meteorite from the angular distribution of cosmic ray tracks, using a new method based on the model of Maurette et al. (1969). The preatmospheric mass was 660¿220 kg, which according to meteor theory implies a geocentric velocity of ?35 km/s. This upper limit is well below the minimum value for a retrograde orbit, 48 km/s.