Dennis Healy, a Steeda-sponsored autocross driver, spent the weekend competing at the SCCA California CAM Challenge/Pro Solo event in Crows Landing, California. Healy and his Steeda-equipped S550 Mustang took home the win in the CAM-C Class, as well as the overall second-place. As Healy recounts, he had first place in his sights, but, unfortunately, he red-lit on his final run to hand over the overall win to Jordan Priestly of JDP Motorsports.
As great as the early success is in the 2018 season, the best part of this story is Healy's grit and determination to succeed. His S550 was suffering some blow-by issues in the days leading up that made his participation in the weekend's event questionable. We express-shipped Dennis a Steeda S550 Oil Separator to help him resolve the issue, and he worked tirelessly to get the car in competition shape. His hardwork clearly paid off!
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Healy shared this recap of the weekend's events, showing just how close he got to the overall CAM Class first place:
"My biggest competitor was myself again though, as I had the scratch times to win, but couldn't do it clean (cones and red-lights plagued my fastest runs) - in fact, I had the misfortune of standing on my Saturday morning runs (including my very first run of the weekend!) - guess I can cross that unfortunate tidbit off my bucket list! In spite of this, I was feeling pretty good heading into the Challenge bracket. In the first round, I took out a GT350R (who beat me last weekend at the SCCA National Tour event, when I couldn't get a clean 2nd day run), and then another GT350R (who beat me in Fontana last month at the previous Pro Solo event) to make it to the final against the highly modified, fire-breathing C7 Corvette belonging to Jordan Priestley of JDP Motorsports. I did happen to break-out in the previous round, so suffered a slight dial-in penalty (1.5x the improvement), but Jordan himself had broken out by a much larger margin earlier, so I knew all I had to do was get a couple clean and quick runs to win. I'd been pushing the lights most of the weekend (0.500 is considered a "perfect" reaction time), and with all the additional rubber laid down that morning, I failed to consider that my car was hooking much better on roll-out. With much disappointment, on my first run, I red-lit with a 0.491 and handed Jordan the Challenge win on a silver platter." - Dennis Healy
Healy will be taking a few weeks off, allowing some time for the weather to improve before jumping back into local/regional competition. He'll also be tackling the summer National schedule, and ultimately the Championship events in Nebraska in September, with plenty of work to do before that.