The National Tour at Devens was hot this year! I mean Really HOT! Temperatures in the 90’s and humidity to match combined with brutal sun to cook the drivers , tires and motors. Small Fortune drivers gutted it out and scored many good finishes including Fast Time for the event, Amod, Bmod, Cmod, FSP and FP wins.

Photo by Dave Hyman

Neil Schelly’s FSP Subaru

After a long winter of engine rebuilding and suspension tuning Neil’s Subaru scored big this weekend with one of the largest winning margins: 3.114 seconds! Check out the new monster 17” wheels and sticky tires! Big things ahead this year for Neil and his all wheel drive wagon.

Photo by Bob Barone

Road Race Refugee

Bill Gendron brought the Dragon D Sports Racer to the event, and even with a super tall first gear (78mph) managed to set top time of the event both days. Do race cars make good solo cars? What do you think?


Bill Goodale and Bob Barone had a great time hammering on each other, especially on Sunday’s faster course where they could “fly the wing” and use their power advantage. Bill ended up with the win, but Bob looked good after his 2 year layoff. Expect good times from both of these drivers during 2008.

National Champ shows the way

CM saw 5 drivers with SFRE backgrounds hammering the course and each other. Jim Garry, Ken Hurd, Stacy Strout, Craig Carr and (all the way from Arizona) Mark Huffman were all looking for the big prize, but Jim G, current National Champion in CM, showed the way with very smooth driving. His last run of 51.8 would have covered the class by more than a second if not for one of those pesky cones. K Hurd finished 2nd while Stacy Strout collected third position.

Missed it by that much!

Reigning National Champ Mike Shields couldn’t hold off challenger Alex Shchipkov this weekend, but he looks forward to defending his National win this Fall in Topeka.

Mike Steere debuted his updated Focus at this event. New suspension parts, upgraded engine and transmission mean big speed for this unusual EP entry. Expect big speed from this car over the summer.

XP Shootout

Kevin Kirchoff was planning to run his Rx7 with the SFRE coil over setup in ASP, but found a leaky rotor seal and borrowed a ride from pal Bill Stone in XP for the Tour. Both cars have similar suspension setups, but Bill’s has the stouter motor allowed in XP. Even though they were running DOT tires in this Prepared class, both drivers had some slick runs.

Smooth, Classic and…..Lavender?

Bob Lang looked good with his TR6 this weekend. After a couple of years of building it is back on the track for 2008. Unopposed this weekend, I expect Bob to be hard to beat in the Northeast Division.

Photo by M Chessick

Coolest Driver at the Tour!

Mark Chessick drove his new for 2008 Honda S2000 in E modified, giving away up to 3000 cc of displacement, but he had a secret weapon….when Sunday’s temperatures went up to the BBQ range, he dropped on the hardtop and turned on the AC for 3 cool runs! Expect Mark to add HP to the great handling of his slick tire S200 in the future.

Bob Jordan was another driver who has been absent lately, but came out for the Tour. His Rotax powered Zink is still quick however and he had 6 good runs. Bob now spends many hours on his Suzuki naked sportbike and is looking for a new home for the Z19, so if you are looking for a lot of speed on a budget, give him a call.