THE STORY BEHIND TEAM 437 Will they prevail at Quest again this year?

Back in August I put the word out, through Myspace, that I was looking for people to split a room with for Quest. I received responses from Micah Dew, Rob Lyons and Ryan Clark. My brother was coming along too, so that made five of us to split the cost for the room, and only four us who were going to need time on my Flairco bar. Over the next 2 months, we checked to make sure everyone was bringing the needed supplies. Micah was bringing the Piazza store and pours, I was bringing the Flairco portable bar, as many SKYY bottles as my Flair bags would carry, and the Libby glassware (Minus the frozen drink glass. This I replaced with an unbreakable one I got from Target. You should have seen Micah’s face when I unpacked it, and then promptly dropped it on the tiled floor!). Rob brought the garnish trays and napkin caddy, plus all the Hiram Walker bottles we would need. He also brought his speed music, which we all decided we would steal. His music should show up 3 times on the DVD.
Sunday, 3 of us arrived at Orlando airport (Ryan’s flight was delayed 7 hours), fortunately all within an hour and a half of each other, and split a cab to the hotel. We were able to check in early (To room 437), set up the Flairco, and get in some practice rounds before we headed off to The Groove for the meet and greet. Now, it should be noted here that Rob, Ryan and I had been practicing our speed rounds at home for the last 2 months. Micah, on the other hand, had not. I had sent him a write-up of the process I was using about 4 days before we arrived. Apparently he had been “miming”, ala Marcel Marceau his speed rounds until he was able to get on the actual bar. After the meet and greet a few of us headed to the Ale house for a few drinks. When I say a few of us, I mean my brother and I, and when I say a few drinks, I mean many. My brother left early too, after being pointed in the direction of the hotel, leaving me to fight it out with the rest of the drunks for the highly coveted Hangover Award. Thank god Ryan’s flight finally got in, and he was able to find me having one hell of a conversation, which I don’t remember, with Cache Bouren in the parking lot.
The next day I awoke to the clanging of bottles, as speed rounds were already underway in our room. Sticky notes were attached to the picture in the living room with names and times written on each one. One guy would do a speed round, and three would time, start the music, judge spills, and count pours. We were being ruthless with the judging in hopes that we would keep our deductions low. Rob, Ryan and I were coming in about 5 seconds slower, on average, than we had been at home and Micah was getting about 3-4 seconds faster with each round. Of course Rob, Ryan and I had all been under a minute at home, while Micah’s time started out at 1:47. We took a break around 1 or 2, had some lunch, then started in again, until around 5 when Levi Donaldson and Paul Trzcianko stopped by to get in a few practice rounds before heading over to compete.  This was when Levi pointed out we were in the same room as he, Paul and Colin Griffiths had shared the year before. He also showed us the “microwave secret”, saving us untold amounts of time between setups. They left for the comp and we pushed on.
Some of you might be asking why I’m covering so much about speed practice. Well as many of you may or may not know, Quest is one of the few comps that have a speed round, and without a proper setup, like having a Flairco portable bar in your practice room, it’s damn hard to score well in this category. You can practice most of a Flair routine in front of a card table, but the Flairco bar plays such a role in the speed round that it’s an ESSENTIAL tool when preparing for Quest. Plus doing well in the speed round at the amateur/advanced level is almost more important to your score than Flair, because lets face it, if your Flairing like the Pros… well, enough said. About 6:30 or 7 we headed over to The Groove again, to watch the Pro Qualifiers. What a great show! I’ll leave the reviews of the pros to someone else more qualified, since this is a story about room 437. Let’s just say, Levi turned in a sweet routine, and (to the surprise of not a few Quest veterans) a fast speed time to put him in the finals. Chock up one, for 437!
On Tuesday, Micah and Rob were in the early qualifying Advanced Group 1, and Ryan and I were in the late Group 2. This worked out well. Micah and Rob left early for the room to get some practice and rest, and Ryan and I stayed to hear the results of the amateurs and Pros. Rob and Micah were up early the next day banging out speed rounds, and then headed off. Ryan and I stayed behind and got in our practice, taking a break to eat lunch and watch the space shuttle launch, after which, Jimmy Valenzuela joined us for some rounds. All the while we were getting updates via text, from Rob and Micah. Cheers could be heard all the way to the elevators on floor four when we got the one stating Rob was the fastest time of the day so far, followed by Micah.

 
Group two meeting with Ken Hall, and it was off the speed room for me. I was the first speed round to go for Group 2. The Blue room was packed. JD called up to Boogie. Boogie confirmed I was ready, and started reading my list. Lets just say, if your standing there getting ready to do your speed round and something happens out of the ordinary, have the presence of mind to call STOP. I had a less than spectacular speed round. But this story isn’t about me. Ryan was about 2 competitors down the list from me, so when it was his turn, we set up his bar and he turned in a good speed round.
Later in the competitor line up Jimmy Valenzuela got his chance to shine on the speed bar by turning in the ONLY CLEAN round out of the advanced qualifiers. We all had our chance on the Flair stage, and then the three advanced finalists were announced that evening, Rob Lyons, Micah Dew, and Steven Jarmuz. With 66% of the advanced finalists hailing from room 437, we were beside ourselves! I’m not going to go into detail about the finals. Let’s just say, Rob was fast, Micah was faster, and even the camera man was asking if it really was Levi turning in a clean minute. You can buy the DVD to watch how the rest of the story unfolds.

I also have to say that if you don’t make the finals at Quest, it’s not so bad. A few of us spent the day at Universal Studios theme park. It’s one of the most fun amusement parks I’ve ever been to, and since it’s literally where Quest is held each year, you can ride rollercoasters, take a lunch break and watch some finalist speed rounds, then hit the water rides, and still get dried off and cleaned up in time for finals night. Quest is definitely THE comp to not miss out on! See ya next October! I’ll be at the Holiday Inn, room 437.