diff --git a/snap-server.cabal b/snap-server.cabal
--- a/snap-server.cabal
+++ b/snap-server.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 name:           snap-server
-version:        0.2.7
+version:        0.2.7.1
 synopsis:       A fast, iteratee-based, epoll-enabled web server for the Snap Framework
 description:
   This is the first developer prerelease of the Snap framework.  Snap is a
@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@
   LICENSE,
   README.md,
   README.SNAP.md,
+  test/benchmark/Benchmark.hs,
+  test/benchmark/Snap/Internal/Http/Parser/Benchmark.hs,
   test/data/fileServe/foo.bin,
   test/data/fileServe/foo.bin.bin.bin,
   test/data/fileServe/foo.html,
@@ -92,7 +94,8 @@
     Paths_snap_server,
     Snap.Internal.Http.Parser,
     Snap.Internal.Http.Server,  
-    Snap.Internal.Http.Server.Date
+    Snap.Internal.Http.Server.Date,
+    System.SendFile
 
   build-depends:
     array >= 0.2 && <0.4,
diff --git a/src/Snap/Internal/Http/Server/LibevBackend.hs b/src/Snap/Internal/Http/Server/LibevBackend.hs
--- a/src/Snap/Internal/Http/Server/LibevBackend.hs
+++ b/src/Snap/Internal/Http/Server/LibevBackend.hs
@@ -376,13 +376,12 @@
 
 -- | throw a timeout exception to the handling thread -- it'll clean up
 -- everything
-timerCallback :: MVar ()           -- ^ loop lock
-              -> EvLoopPtr         -- ^ loop obj
+timerCallback :: EvLoopPtr         -- ^ loop obj
               -> EvTimerPtr        -- ^ timer obj
               -> IORef CTime       -- ^ when to timeout?
               -> MVar ThreadId     -- ^ thread to kill
               -> TimerCallback
-timerCallback lock loop tmr ioref tmv _ _ _ = do
+timerCallback loop tmr ioref tmv _ _ _ = do
     debug "Backend.timerCallback: entered"
 
     now       <- getCurrentDateTime
@@ -394,7 +393,7 @@
           tid <- readMVar tmv
           throwTo tid TimeoutException
 
-      else withMVar lock $ \_ -> do    -- re-arm the timer
+      else do    -- re-arm the timer
           -- fixme: should set repeat here, have to wait for an hlibev patch to
           -- do it
           evTimerAgain loop tmr
@@ -570,8 +569,7 @@
         thrmv       <- newEmptyMVar
         now         <- getCurrentDateTime
         timeoutTime <- newIORef $ now + 20
-        tcb         <- mkTimerCallback $ timerCallback (_loopLock backend)
-                                                       lp
+        tcb         <- mkTimerCallback $ timerCallback lp
                                                        tmr
                                                        timeoutTime
                                                        thrmv
diff --git a/test/benchmark/Benchmark.hs b/test/benchmark/Benchmark.hs
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/benchmark/Benchmark.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+module Main where
+
+import Criterion.Main
+
+import qualified Snap.Internal.Http.Parser.Benchmark as PB
+
+fib :: Int -> Int
+fib 0 = 0
+fib 1 = 1
+fib n = fib (n-1) + fib (n-2)
+
+main :: IO ()
+main = defaultMain [
+	PB.benchmarks
+       ]
diff --git a/test/benchmark/Snap/Internal/Http/Parser/Benchmark.hs b/test/benchmark/Snap/Internal/Http/Parser/Benchmark.hs
new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/benchmark/Snap/Internal/Http/Parser/Benchmark.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
+{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
+{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
+
+module Snap.Internal.Http.Parser.Benchmark 
+       ( benchmarks )
+       where
+
+import           Criterion.Main
+import           Snap.Internal.Http.Parser
+import           Data.ByteString (ByteString)
+import qualified Data.ByteString as S
+import qualified Snap.Iteratee as SI
+import qualified Control.Exception as E
+import           Data.Attoparsec hiding (Result(..))
+
+req1 = S.concat 
+       [ "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1\r\n"
+       , "Host: 0.0.0.0=5000\r\n"
+       , "User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008061015 Firefox/3.0\r\n"
+       , "Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8\r\n"
+       , "Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5\r\n"
+       , "Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate\r\n"
+       , "Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7\r\n"
+       , "Keep-Alive: 300\r\n"
+       , "Connection: keep-alive\r\n"
+       , "\r\n" ]
+
+test1 ::  IO ()
+test1 = do
+  i <- SI.enumBS req1 parseRequest
+  f <- SI.run i
+  return ()
+
+benchmarks = bgroup "parser"
+             [ bench "firefoxget" $ whnfIO test1 ]