As has been the case for the last few national events at Moore Field, Fort Deven’s MA, the weather cooperated with blue skies and warm temperatures. Last year competitors suffered through high 90’s on both days, but this year we all were rewarded with milder temps in the high 70’s to low 80’s.
Saturday morning started off with immediate competition, with 8 drivers in STX as the first class on course. The top 3 were separated by just .3 seconds, with Don Slevin (SJFPerformance.com/Stranoparts) Scion FR-s in 3rd, John Rappa BMW 325is in second and still un-beaten in 2014 Jeff Hurst(ANZE Suspension) Mazda RX8 taking the win, all on Hankook tires. Robert Day (Big Budget Racing, Giant Lazor Co) Mazda 3 would take the win in STF. STC was contested at the top with Derek Sivret only .3 behind class winner Chang Ho Kim (FunPhotos) 1989 Honda Civic SI. Ben Wagstaff in his (Big Budget Racing) Mazda Miata would take STS by a healthy margin. Ryan Field won STR handily in his 1999 Mazda Miata.
Competition in the street category was varied, with a number of one and two driver classes. B-Street had 7 drivers with good competition between Fedja Jeleskovic, Mitsubishi Lancer on Hankook tires coming in just .4 behind Patrick Huxley (i**9 Racing, Thanks Josh!) Honda S2000 taking the win. Not surprising anyone, James Feinberg (SoloPro Driving School) Audi TT, making the trip all the way up from North Carolina won D-Street by over 3 seconds. G-Street was the largest class overall at the event with 9 drivers. The top 3 were separated by less than .2 seconds with Sam Tocci in his Ford Fiesta ST in 3rd, Nik Fin, co-driving with Sam on BFGoodrich tires in 2nd and Warren Barck (Rally-Tech) Subaru Impreza RS on Dunlop tires taking the win by just .092!
A-Street prepared probably had the largest number of lead changes as Bryan Mancuso, Justin Lau and Bill Rogerson battled over all 4 runs. When the dust settled Bill Rogerson in his Subaru STI would finish in 3rd, Bryan Mancuso (G-Fab / Big Budget Racing) Mistubishi Evo in 2nd and Justin Lau (G-Fab Racing) Mistubishi Evo on Hoosier tires would take the win by .16 seconds. CSP had a great family battle with Pam Davis, Bob Davis and son Billy Davis all driving. Billy would take the win in his (MiataRoadster.com / Evolutionschoo.com) Mazda Miata over dad by just .156. ESP had 8 drivers and was controlled from the start by Erik Carlson in his Ford Mustang GT taking the win by .4 seconds.
Street Mod classes had very healthy numbers across the board. In SM long time co-drivers PJ Corrales and David White would battle for the top 2 spots. Taking it down to last runs in the newest incarnation of the venerable 240sx Panda, the spokescar for G-Fab Racing, PJ Corrales (240sx Motoring) would take the win by just .005 over White. As has become to frequent a site, Panda suffered mechanical problem as Jenna Corrales headed out for her runs in SML with frantic fix efforts ensuing. SMF was won handily by Brian Kuehl (Big Budget Racing / Karcepts) Honda CRX by some 2.2 seconds over dad and co-driver Don Kuehl. Special mention for the Kuehl family as they practically had a fleet of their own vehicles running in 5 different classes! SSM was poised to be a blow out as the 240sx Panda was living on borrowed battery power, but it made it through all runs and put up a very good fight with the RX7 of Jake Namer. Coming out of retirement for this event, Nathan Whipple would finish in 3rd in his Maserati G-Fab (Panda) followed by new father, out racing just 1 month into being a dad, Todd Kean (G-Fab Racing) 240sx Panda and taking the win, Jake Namer (HamfistRacing/SJF/Speed1/Autox) Hoosier clad Mazda RX7.
A special mention for one of our drivers in DSR Ladies JoJo Corrales Kean, who just 1 month after becoming a mom, came out in support of her husband and also took the win in her class driving the (G-Fab/Big Buget Racing) Mini Cooper. It was great seeing the support of all NER members helping the new parents keep an eye on little MJ.
B-Modified fielded a class of 7 drivers, with a number of C-Mod cars bumping up to make the class. Joshua Parker in his C-Mod Reynard Formula Ford had good pace and an early lead in the class, but Jim Garry in his Cheetah SR1 would take the win by just over .7 seconds. It was great seeing all these various mod cars battle. A-Mod had a great back and forth battle between Stacey Strout and Bill Goodale trading the lead back and forth. Stacey would take the win by just .068.
Formula Junior is never dull at NER with Kim Soo Gopnik and Felix Beck battling it out. Kim Soo would take the win and show everyone that Junior Karts can run index times with the big cars. Way to go to both our junior drivers!
Sunday shootout competition saw more of the same great competition we saw on Saturday return. Only a few drivers wouldn’t stick around to play in this fun and challenging variation of competition.
The ladies bracket had 4 drivers and ultimately would see co-drivers JoJo Corrales-Kean and Kasey Chartier battling for the final spot. The win would go to JoJo, with 1 month old MJ cheering mom on from the sidelines in his G-Fab Modified baby stroller!
Qualifying for the Club Challenge had great competition in each of the 3 heats. Each heat had many drivers within the same few tenths on either side of the top 16 qualifying to take part in knock out competition. The final bracket of 16 competing in the Club Challenge would see a nice mix of cars along with ladies drivers. In the round of 4 Jenna Corrales back, behind the wheel of the 240sx Panda would lose to a break out by Eric Kutil out of STX in his Acura Integra Type-R. Denise Kugler in her GP Honda CRX, who’s car suffered a mechanical failure on its first run during open competition on Saturday, would take the win over Bryan Mancuso. It was nice to see both ladies back in their cars after the failures on Saturday. Eric Kutil (Big Budget Racing) would take the Club Challenge win breaking out by .4 seconds in the front wheel drive Honda finale!
The Super Challenge rounds of 16 had any number of drivers who were odd’s on favorites to take the overall. In heat 1, a cone on his run against Ben Wagstaff would send PJ Corrales packing and Wagstaff on to compete for the heat win. Wagstaff would face Brain Kuehl in the final for heat 1, with both drivers running slower than dial in, Kuehl (Big Budget Racing/Karcepts) Honda CRX would take the win and move on to compete for the final win. Heat 2 action had early favorite James Feinberg losing in the first round to Mike Wilson (SJF Performance) CS-R Scion FR-S! He would move on to face Wiley Cox from DS-R for the heat win. Wilson would essentially run to the .01 his dial in and move on to the final round. Heat 3 had the big dogs from SSM battling it out with the Street Prepared and SSR cars. On the low side of the bracket, Billy Davis would break out by .7 against Grant Reeve to move into the final pairing. Davis would face Todd Kean (G-Fab Racing) and new dad, who had just beat Billy’s father, Bob Davis to move into the final pairing. Each driver would break out, but Kean would move on breaking out by about .1 more than Davis.
The final 3 drivers would face off, with heat 1 winner Brian Kuehl running about .5 seconds off his dial in, heat 2 driver Mike Wilson breaking out ever so slightly and Todd Kean suffering yet another failure for the Panda 240sx on course as the throttle cable snapped. Out of Utica New York, it would be Mike Wilson (SJF Performance) in his 2014 Scion FR-S running CS-R that would take the overall win in the Super Challenge.
Additional information, including full results, of The Tire Rack SCCA Devens Match Tour can be found here. More information on the entire Tire Rack SCCA Solo program is available at www.scca.com/Solo. Follow SCCA on Twitter @SCCAOfficial and like the Club on Facebook at Facebook.com/SCCAOfficial.
The next round of the Tire Rack® SCCA® Match Tour is the Rocky Mountain Tour in Fountain, CO on Jun 21st and 22nd.
