Words by Melissa Introne, Photos by Lisa DeYeso and James Ray
NER’s Flag Chief and IT7 Driver Say “I Do” at NHMS
Over 100 fans and guests cheered while white smoke billowed across the Winner’s Circle at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. As it cleared, instead of a racecar coming to rest with a newly crowned champion behind the wheel, a glowing bride in a checkered flag wedding dress emerged raising a bouquet of flowers held high as “Send Me an Angel” by Real Life from the movie Rad played in the background.
Jessie Honigs and Jason Carroll, longtime New England Region members, exchanged vows, toasted a unity beer, and took a wedding selfie on Saturday, August 4th during the Cheap Date NERRC Regional event at NHMS. Their wedding, nicknamed the “Tie The Knot” portion of the race weekend, brought family, friends, and racers together to celebrate their union and the start of married life. The ceremony and following reception were filled with unique and individual touches that captured Jessie and Jason’s personalities, highlighted all the fun racers have when they get together, and left everyone with memories that will last a lifetime.
The Couple
In typical 21st century fashion, the couple met through a Subaru online forum in 2007. Jessie claims she fell for Jason as soon as “he showed me his pink car.” Jason had been involved with SCCA and met his best friend, Craig Swinehart, at a Solo event. Together, they got Jessie back involved into racing and the club. It was at an Indycar race in Baltimore with extra free time on her hands that Jessie met some flaggers and decided to check out that aspect of club involvement – and then became hooked. Today, she serves as the NER Flagging & Communications Chief, managing race control and flag stations for region events.
Even though the couple continues to dabble in Rally and Solo events, most often Jessie is found at tracks donning her worker whites and Jason is spotted behind the wheel of his blue, and yes still pink, IT-7 race car battling it out with all the other IT-7 cars in the NER Dinosaur race series.
Planning the Wedding
After being together for so many years, getting married was just one of those eventualities. As they discussed possibilities, the couple kept coming back to one thing, “We wanted to find a place that fit our personality. It needed to include all of our race friends and could show our friends and family what it is we love,” Jessie explained.
The idea for NHMS was floated, and with some help from JB Swan and other members of the NER club racing community, the date was set for the annual NER August triple regional event.
The Ceremony
Old wives tales claim that rain on a wedding day is a sign of good luck. This couple must be extremely lucky! During the Friday test day, torrential rains, tornado warnings, and pellet sized hail pummeled the track. Saturday morning simply brought more of the same with nothing but grey skies and seemingly unending wet weather as the race day progressed. But with just a few hours before the bride walked through her cloud of smoke, the clouds rolled away and blue skies emerged. Clear weather basked the track for the entire evening of festivities, resulting in a beautiful setting for the ceremony and reception.
After making her iconic race-inspired entrance, the bride met her waiting groom at the top of the winner’s circle. Wendy Swinehart, long-time friend and wife of Craig, stood there waiting to officiate the ceremony.
Jessie was walked in by her father, wearing an asymmetrical, off-the shoulder wedding gown with a checkered flag bodice over 12 layers of tulle. And get this, she made it herself. “I bought the checkered flag dress and then altered it by removing one shoulder and adding the puffy draping at the bottom. Then I sewed all the layers of tulle together into a skirt that I wore underneath,” Jessie explained as she described the process for creating the one-of-a-kind, two-piece dress.
UNITY BEER CEREMONY: Beer is glorious and rich and refreshing, and so too shall be the product of your union. It is the union of beer’s basic ingredients that make the finished product truly magical and truly magnificent. So too will be your marriage. For love is the water of your beer. Trust is the grain that will give it character and strength. Passion, like hops, blends fragrance and spice to your life together. Committment is the yeast that acts as the catalyst to make this glorious, metaphysical wonder possible.
For the next twenty minutes, the ceremony consisted of an invocation, declaration of intent, the exchanging of rings, a unity ceremony, blessing, and finally the pronouncement. Keeping with tradition for the vows, the couple left their unique mark during the unity ceremony. “We wanted it to be interesting, we didn’t want people to be bored,” Jessie said. Bored, they were not. Laughs, giggles and huge smiles were spotted throughout the crowd as the couple presented their representative individual beers, joined them together into one brew, and then shared a sip from their unity cup. “We toyed with a unity PB&J sandwich, or even placing the final bolt in a motor together. But the unity beer won.”
The ceremony concluded with the bride and groom asking the guests to pose for a selfie. The requisite kiss. And then a High Five from Jason to Wendy to seal the deal.
The Reception
Guests, race drivers, workers, friends and family gathered under a tent next to the track for the reception. Once again, the couple’s creativity and individual style was on full display. The first stop was the Guest Book Racecar. Jason’s IT-7 was parked beside the tent with a basket of permanent markers for guests to sign the car and offer their well wishes. Leave it to a group of racers to leave some, um, creative drawings and messages on the car.
“One friend wrote a message in Chinese on the hood,” Jessie laughs. “We just had it translated and it says ‘You are the slowest race car driver in the world’.”
A buffet dinner was served, along with mixed drinks and of course – beer! A DJ played music on the tarmac dance floor, an artist drew cartoon pictures of the guests, and there were ladderball and corn hole games to play while guests ate and socialized. More than a dozen flavors of cupcakes were served to complete the meal.
Two of the younger guests, Maddy and Devan Sheppard, stole the show during the reception when they performed a customized lyrics version of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” for the wedding couple. With personalized references to Jessie and Jason, tears and laughter were flowing as the two girls sang their hearts out to celebrate the wedding of two of their favorite people.
In the end, Jessie reflects, “I was amazed at all the people that unexpectedly helped out throughout the day. Without asking, people just pitched in. They even cleaned everything up at the end!”
The Honeymoon
After it was all said and done, the couple departed a few days later for a week long honeymoon in New Orleans. A first-time visit for each of them, “We didn’t get a chance to relax! We were so busy. We needed a vacation when we got back from our vacation,” Jessie said.
Back at their home in Bolton, MA, Jessie and Jason have settled into married life and are finishing off the end of the NER season. From all of their friends and family, as well as the NER community, we were thrilled and honored to be a part of their special day. Thank you for sharing it with us.
On our French Quarter hotel room balcony at Place d’Armes Hotel.
