31st Annual Zone 1 PCA Autocross
by Joe Kraetsch, NCR Autocross Chair
On August 20th 75 drivers from 8 different Porsche regions met at the Moore Airfield of Fort Devens for 2 days of autocross competition in the 31st annual Zone 1 PCA Autocross. The event was hosted by the North Country Region under the direction of Dan Fishkind, Zone 1 Autocross Chair.
My 924S broke a crankshaft at the Palmer DE a couple weeks earlier but Jeremy generously offered to let me co-drive his Cayman R and Jeff Johnson from NER shared his Cayman S with Lisa so we both got to drive and had a blast (once we adjusted to having horsepower and needing brakes!). Thank you Jeremy and Jeff!
Saturday, Scruffy and Chris Darminio set a challenging, but fun course with some interesting new combinations of elements. I overheard positive comments about the course by a number of drivers. Run times were in the 60-80 second range although two GT4 drivers, Scruffy and Adil broke the 60-second mark. Timing ran like clockwork with only a couple minor glitches and everyone got eight runs and a nice midday lunch break.
After packing up the equipment, many of us headed over to the rear of the Springhill Suites hotel for the Saturday night Zone 1 BBQ by grill master Don Coburn and his lovely wife Barbara. Lots of food, drink and stories were shared by all.
On Sunday, Chris and Scruffy reversed the course with a few tweaks and created an even more enjoyable, but still challenging course. Run times again were in the 60-80 second range. There were a lot of back and forth battles, many of which were decided by the last run, including several cases where drivers overcame Day 1 deficits to move up in the standings (the best run from each day counts in the final standings). Sunday ran even smoother than Saturday and we enjoyed eight runs with another nice lunch break and finished before 3:00 allowing drivers from afar to hit the road at a reasonable time.
NCR drivers represented our region very well. We had 18 NCR drivers and half (9) of those drivers took home first place trophies and most of the others had podium finishes. In addition, NCR captured both FTD trophies--Scruffy took Men’s FTD with a total score of 119.457 and Rachel Baker took Ladies FTD with a score of 122.915. Here are how the NCR drivers fared:
| Place | Class | Driver |
| 1 | S1 | David Seavey |
| 1 | S4 | Ed Moschella |
| 1 | S5 | Walt Lunsmann |
| 1 | P1 | Chris Darminio |
| 1 | P2 | Graham Mingst |
| 1 | P5 | Lev Tabenkin |
| 1 | P6 | Rachel Baker |
| 1 | P7 | Jeremy Mazzariello |
| 1 | I02 | Stephen Lefebvre |
| 2 | S3 | Dana Russian |
| 2 | S4 | Akira Mochimaru |
| 3 | S1 | Chris Hubert |
| 3 | P2 | John Mingst |
| 3 | P3 | Felipe Avery-Miranda |
| 3 | P7 | Joe Kraetsch |
| 4 | S3 | Lisa Roche |
| 5 | S2 | Charlie Sayers |
| 10 | S3 | Jack Saunders |
Finally, NCR brought the Region Challenge Trophy back home with a perfect score after "lending" it to Northeast Region last year.
This year's Zone 1 Autocross was the best one yet. Many thank yous are necessary. Thank you to Dan Fishkind for organizing the event; Graham Mingst, NCR member and Zone 1 Autocross Registrar for his hard work; Jeremy, Lisa, Rachel Baker and Walt Lunsmann for timing; Scruffy and Chris for two great courses; Don and Barbara Coburn for the Saturday night BBQ; Akira Mochimaru for managing the sound level monitoring and reporting; Ed Moschella for his team spirit and support; Jeff Johnson and Jeremy for sharing their rides with Lisa and me and making autocross fun for us again; and last but not least to all of the entrants for helping to make this the best Zone 1 autocross ever!
