2007 Devens NT - BSP

So it looks like we had a better weekend than last year. Friday was dry, Sat mostly wet and a beautiful Sunday. Thankfully the mosquitos weren't too bad either. Onto what you probably came here for. I'll let Dan handle STU in his own post, but here's some BSP and a little SM, mostly my account of catching "the benchmark".

BSP and SM got lucky and ran in 4th heat on Sat. Mostly dry, but still drying and nice and cool. First runs were pretty insane, especially since I loosened up the car ALOT anticipating massive grip up at Devens. I get lucky and find a downed cone for a rerun. I hear Mark Daddio runs a 56 something in SM. GJ apparently decided to test grip on the new 275's on the grass, no wonder Chris wore his "John Deere" t-shirt. I head out on my 2nd run and the car just feels insane. It's doing exactly what I had hoped and more. Still botched a couple sections but came in faster than Mark at a 55.9XX. Funny part was the guy who hands out the timeslip just says "wow!". Kevin is having a typical dirty day in the 57's, but finally cleans up to a 56.2. It looks like he and I are running away with the BSP.

So now Dan is telling me to gun for 54's and Adil is telling me to take more risk and tidy up on the cones. Meanwhile Mark comes flying in on a 55.5XX. I knew his time was obtainable but didn't think I would be any faster really. I set out on my 3rd run taking Adil's advice and laid down a 55.1XX in what had to be my best run during this year so far. I gotta say it was awesome having Kevin, Jan, Dan, Adil and everyone else around after that run.

Here's the weird part...as soon as you catch someone like Mark Daddio the pressure builds. You go from hunter to prey and hope your runs aren't just a flash in the pan. I spent the entire night focused on that. On that note Sunday say a more normal me (53.3) and I never laid down one solid run. The video and MaxQ is showing that I most likely wouldn't have caught Mark (52.8) anyway, or GJ (52.4)!! Kevin also had a great run (53.7), albeit dirty, on Sunday too. Kev and I ended up over 7 seconds ahead of the rest of BSP and collected some hard earned $$ from Kumho.

Here's some video of my fast runs Sat and Sun:



I gotta hand out kudos to a couple people. Adil is number one. I don't know if he was down and out during Sat runs b/c his Axis friends from Stuttgart and Bavaria dissed, but we adopted him into the holunfie family for the weekend. Not happy after Sat runs he focused hard on catching Dan, which I didn't think would happen. Well, he heads out and sets STU FTD on sunday to pass Dan for 2nd in a car his wife (not previously married either, Dan) drives to work! Chris Carris hustled his way to 1st in AS while shifting to third (and back) 3 or 4 times! Chris has been a maniac and we've been on top of each other in pax lately. I don't know here very well, but I have to mention Lynne Rothney-Kozlak. Chris and I watched her run 3rd heat both days and she was absolutely awesome. Strano was a bit more exciting to watch, but Lynne was very smooth and precise, just flying in that old IROC.

Just wanna say a quick thanks to NER for putting on the event and I'm looking forward to holunfie kicking some more ass in DC.

-Jay (John)

Here's a few links to results and pics from the event I have found:

Final Results
http://http://www.scca.com/_FileLibrary/File/Devens%20Sunday%20Preliminary.pdf

PAX Results
http://sccaforums.com/forums/thread/248644.aspx

Pics from several sources
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/album?c=rjbfspso@sbcglobal.net&aid=576460762404217786&pid=&wtok=LMzAZb9DA0jJU2wSHI1ung--&ts=1181565928&.src=ph

http://dan.cernese.org/p/

http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y166/EdRacer71/Devens%20Tour/?start=0