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Tuesday, January 06, 2009    
BluePointe Motorsports takes overall win at the 2008 PBOC WinterFest 6 Hour Race into the Night
BluePointe Motorsports takes overall win at the 2008 PBOC WinterFest 6 Hour Race into the Night

Team BluePointe took the overall win at the 2008 PBOC WinterFest 6 Hour Race into the Night. The team had to overcome a number of challenges including a transmission change Wednesday night, a new crew, new drivers and rainy conditions to get their first endurance race win. Team owner and driver, John Studdard, qualified the car 6th on the grid in the field of 65 cars. Studdard drove the first 1.5 hour stint and was able to get the car into 2nd place overall and first in class. 

Don St. John was up next and drove a perfect stint. St. John was able to improve upon Studdard's efforts by getting the car into P1 overall at just over the 3 hour mark. As darkness fell so did the rain. After a spectacular pit stop performed by the crew of Hank Jackson, John Jackson, Chris Harrison, Tim Leeder  and Brian Jacobs, Kevin Molloy jumped for his turn in the BluePointe M3. 

Molloy would face a number of challenges over the next 1 hour and 40 minutes. In addition to the dark and rain, Molloy only had 4 laps of seat time in the car and now the car had a fluid leak from the differential that was filling the driver compartment with smoke every lap. Despite the challenges and in a brilliant drive, Molloy was able to tough it out and maintain P1 overall.

With 80 minutes remaining Studdard was back in the car for the final stint. Studdard had trouble leaving the pits due to the clutch overheating during the stop. He was unable to get the car in gear and for a few tense moments, it looked like the race may be over for BluePointe. The crew tried rocking the car to help Studdard find a gear. After shutting the car down, Studdard was able to get the car into 2nd and the crew push started hit away.

Once on the track, Studdard quickly realized the clutch problem was worse than thought and could only get 4th and 5th gears to work. 1-3 would not engage while moving.  At this point, the second place car had closed the gap and was within 1.25 laps of Studdard. Then with about 50 minutes to go, it went from bad to worse; a full course yellow closed the remaining 22 cars up and reduced BluePointe's lead to under 20 seconds.  At the restart, the gap went to 12 seconds after 5.5 hours of racing.

Studdard had John Jackson and Brian Jacobs begin to call split times each lap. He was able to open the gap back up to about 35 seconds. With 20 minutes remaining, the team finally caught a break and the second place car had to make an unscheduled pit stop. The 3rd place car was 2.5 laps down so Studdard was able to set a comfortable pace and nurse the crippled M3 home for BluePointe's first endurance race win. 

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