FFotos by James Kim
5 and 6, pick up sticks...
Schedule conflicts to the north and south, meant that a reduced grid of only 34 cars would be taking part in the fight this weekend. In addition, some of our "Crossflow die-hards" like Danny Baker, Art Hebert, Dan Wise, and our HF points leader Andrew Wait would be at Goodwood for the weekend. Meaning all was to play for, and lots of points were up for grabs. Ever the shrewd tactician, Wait hired noted local pro Tim Barber to keep the seat warm on his ever-fast Titan Mk6. Other than the benefit to our series in having another car on the grid, when said car is piloted by a bonafide pro that is likely to snag some points away from the thundering herd breathing down ones neck, all the better, right?
Most all of the grid used the Friday test day to knock off the rust, get up to pace for the weekend, and work out whatever ails that might come to the fore when the green flag dropped for qualifying. There would be little time to waste.
Qualifying 1:
Not long ago, a 1:48 was a front row time... Those days are gone my friends. Long gone.
The snarling horde was released from the grid to sunny skies and a clear track. Immediately fast times were thrown up on the board with ex-SCCA National Champ Bob Lesnett immediately going P1, bettering his time every lap until lap 3 where he would stand with a 1:45.54. Lesnett only did 5 laps and 4 of them were in the 45's. Gauntlet, consider yourself thrown down.
Not one to back down from what was clearly going to be a fight, Tim Barber went P2 on lap 7 (class pole for HF), also firmly in the 1:45's. Row two on the grid was all orange with Kelly Heil's Lola and Steve Romak's Titan (P2 in both CF and HF, respectively) both in the low 1:46's, followed by Adam White and Oliver Ramleth (P3 in CF and HF), Martin Lauber and Brian Swanson (P4 in HF and CF, with the top 10 closed out by the Club Fords of Neil Porter and a personal best qualifying effort for Max Minshull.
The grid was quite close with the top 17 cars all well below a 1:50, with Brian Forster in P17 and a career PB laptime for Tom Minnich, who yarded his Tiga into the low 1:49's and the 8th row on the grid. How's the view from up there Tom?
Alex Dodd had a great qualifying run to roll off P21 (P13 in HF), flanked by Jack Wilson, Mike Wirrick, and Ed Lauber, and closing out our grid we welcomed back George Jewett. Great to see you back on the grid George!
Race 1:
Overall polesitter Bob Lesnett used a Texas start to beat the field to the green, leaving the next few rows in his wake. After a lap or so though, the gap to Tim Barber, Kelly Heil, Steve Romak and Martin Lauber was gone and they got down to fighting. Barber got past for the point on lap 4 and didn't look back, leading with a small gap for the rest of the way to take his first Crossflow overall victory. The battle between Romak and Heil was fantastic, with Lauber never out of touch. Again and again Romak would throw a haymaker into T11, only to be rebuffed by the stupendous front braking prowess of Heil's Lola. Heil however eventually conceded the spot to Romak after an unforced error in T4, Steve went off in pursuit of Lesnett's dark blue Crossle.
Adam White held solidly onto the 6th spot (3rd in CF), more or less on his own, a similar position to Oliver Ramleth (7th OA, 4th in HF) as the pair had fallen back from the lead battle just past half distance.
Max Minshull showed that with the Royale chassis, he was going to need to be reckoned with by finishing up a solid run to the 9th spot overall (5th in CF), tailed by the now familiar faces at the front end of the grid of Paul Kitchen and Ed Van Tassel in 10th and 11th overall respectively. They weren't far ahead of Marty Benck at the stripe, who started off a solid weekend with a 12th place finish (7th in HF) and the top step of the Masters podium. Marty closed out his race fighting it out with Neil Porter, who had an eventful Round 5, losing nearly 10 spots on the second lap before clawing his way back forward to 13th overall (6th in CF) and second spot on the Masters podium. Eric Verdin rounded out the Masters podium with a 15th overall finish (8th in HF). When the checker fell, David Dupuis had moved up 7 spots to take home the Katusha Speed Shop Hard Charger Wine Country Motorsports $100 gift card in his super cool Gemini.
"JP" John Plavan's race ended early with a misfire, as did Reno's Sam McCord who brought his beautiful Zink back out with a fresh nose to play with us this weekend. Jack Wilson and Ed Lauber also retired early. 3 of the 4 retiring drivers were to return to the grid on Sunday, with McCord's weekend ending early.
Qualifying 2:
A cool and gray Autumn morning awaited our racers on Sunday as they got their fireproof jammies on for qualifying. The field rolled off at at 9:17 to see how they would line up for the race later that day.
Tim Barber drew first blood with a 1:46.7 to put him on the top spot at the end of lap 2 but it wasn't to last as Big Bad Bob Lesnett layed down a heater at a 1:45.7 to take the top spot for the second day in a row. Romak and Heil would swap positions from Saturday with the orange Titan besting the orange Lola this session. Adam White would round out the top 5 to make it the second ever time that we would have two Lolas in the top 5 of qualifying. Perhaps the most noteworthy performance from this session might likely have been that of Martin Lauber who managed to set his 7th place (4th in HF) qualifying time while dealing with a stuck-wide-open secondary butterfly on his carburetor; no mean feat.
Brian Forster finished up the session .033 out of the top ten and would line up inside row 6, with Jay Streets a few tenths shy of him in P13. Tom Minnich showed that his Saturday Quali pace wasn't to be doubted by notching his Tiga in 15th spot, ahead of perennial contenders Will Jackson, Eric Verdin, and Mike Wirrick.
Ed Van Tassel had a rough session, completing only one lap before the splines on his clutch disk took the morning off of work, and he parked on the outside of the esses to watch the session. His single flying lap was good enough for the 25th spot though. Further back Fred Greis was doing his best to come to grips with the beautiful papaya orange Titan Mk5, and he would slot in just behind George Jewett, rolling along now on his comeback weekend.
Race 2:
A repeat of Saturday's start was not to be as the grid hung with Bob Lesnett when he went to the power, and something in the neighborhood of 3500 prancing ponies were released in the mad dash up the hill and into Turn 2. Jellyman Kelly Heil wasn't to join in the moshpit though, electrical failure sidelined him on the pace lap.
Tim Barber took the point up the hill with Lesnett and White right behind, the argy-bargy ensued with Romak and Lauber going hammer and tongs ahead of Ramleth and Swanson. White hung a wheel off as the door closed on him but the only lasting impression was a cloud of dust as all the cars made it through.
The lead pack stretched out fairly quickly with Barber holding a comfortable 3 carlength gap over Lesnett. The lack of passing belied the tension though; all the drivers up front were working at max capacity to keep the guy in front of him close, and the guy behind him back there. While Barber, Lesnett, White, Romak, Lauber, Ramleth and Swanson didn't let up, the positions looked pretty solid until Lauber spun his way out of the top 5 at about 1/2 distance, eventually ending up in 7th (5th in HF).
Ed Van Tassel however, was on the move. His new clutch disk was putting all the power from his Ivey engine down and he was slicing his way through the pack, picking up several spots on the first three laps en-route to joining what was to be arguably the best fight on the grid. The battle between Jay Streets, Will Jackson, Tom Minnich, Brian Forster, and EVT was a slobberknocker with Minnich's driving at an all time high as he fought back attempt after attempt by Forster to take the spot. All the contestants in this battle rolled though tearoffs as Jackson's car fired off a steady mist of oil, one could've guessed a James Bond-ish attempt to win the day, but a leaky oil line was merely the culprit. Jackson ended up leading the gaggle home for the 10th spot (7th in class), with Minnich a personal best P11 (P5 in Club Ford), Forster and Van Tassel picking up the Katusha Speed Shop hard charger award with his move up to 13th spot.
John Plavan, still fighting a persistent misfire managed to bring his beautiful Crossle home in the 15th spot. Mitch Roth spent the day fighting it out with everyone's favorite bus driver, Chris Schoap, and the beautiful Winkleman of Jack Wilson. Jay Streets had a last lap booboo and spun his way out of the battle he had been engulfed in, and ended up P22 overall, just ahead of the Titans of Ed Lauber and Dave Sandlin. And finally Max Minshull's exciting debut weekend of his new Royale ended on a down note, with him retiring early.
Top Gun Qualifiers (including this weekend):
Andrew Wait, Art Hebert, Bob Lesnett, Brian Forster, Brian Swanson, Oliver Ramleth, Paul Kitchen, David Dupuis, Ed VanTassel
Our Crossflow Cuppies modeling the Top Gun Shootout Championship Belt!
PARTY HIGHLIGHTS
Beer and wine for the whole weekend were supplied by Steve Romak. Thank you so much Steve!! And we had a bunch of great giveaways provided by our series sponsors!
The raffle for the Lechner Racing Design helmet paint job was won by Jay Streets. Jay proudly commented that he bought ONE ticket. Thank you all for purchasing tickets, your funds help to keep the prizes and fun flowing!
SRS really stepped up their game with the Fastest Mechanic prizes; this weekend Riccardo Pinero won both a WIFI borescope and an infrared digital pyrometer.
The Katusha Speed Shop Hard Charger award ($100 to Wine Country Motorsports) went on Saturday to David Dupuis and on Sunday to Ed Van Tassel. This also qualified both drivers for the Top Gun Shootout at Laguna next month!
Alan Dezzani has graciously donated a digital print at every Crossflow round this season. Alan's artwork is fantastic (some of his portfolio can be seen here: http://dezzanidigitalart.com/home/vintage_racing)This weekend's print was won by Eric Verdin who will have a lovely portrait of his Titan to hang on his wall this fall!
The Ivey Engines crew donated some gift certificates, which were won by Tom Minnich and Will Jackson. Jay and the boys also gave out a TON of great swag.
Brian Forster, our race weekend trophy sponsor gave away to the Long Tow award to our resident East Coaster Fred Greis who comes all the way from Long Island!
The CSRG Top Gun Shootout qualifiers for this weekend were: Bob Lesnett (twice!), and hard chargers David Dupuis and Ed Van Tassel.
Final Rounds - Laps for Laguna:
Rounds 7 and 8 will find the Crossflow Cup tackling the new surface at Laguna Seca for the first time this year. We will be sending out information about this event in the coming weeks. Some pertinent items of information about the event that we DO know:
The "1 race drop" rule: I mentioned it earlier this year. Only your SEVEN best point finishes will count. So if you have missed a round, or you are worried that the DNF you had early in the season is going to hurt, never fear. We are only counting the best 7 finishes.
The Top Gun Shootout! This will take place AFTER the final points race on Sunday. We don't know a schedule yet but for those of you who do not qualify, you will want to delay leaving the track until after this race!
Awards - we will do all our spirit awards (Crossflow Cup, MVP, FFanciest FFord, etc) on Saturday. The point championships will be handed out on Sunday.
This is our best chance for a big grid all year. To that end, if we hit 50 cars, I'll give away one free entry out of my pocket. So PLEASE come out and support Crossflow.
Swag will be available! If you haven't already bought shirt, a hat, sweatshirt or tumbler, we will have them for sale there as well! All proceeds help to support YOUR series!
View points standings HERE
~ Thank you all for making Rounds 5 and 6 a success! ~
Top Left : CF Podium - Bob Lesnett P1, Kelly Heil P2, Adam White P3
Top Left Center: Sunday CF Podium: Bob Lesnett P1, Adam White P2, Brian Swanson P3
Top Right Center: Lechner Helmet Paint Job won on Saturday night by Jay Streets
Top Right : HF Podium - Tim Barber P1, Steve Romak P2, Martin Lauber P3
Bottom Left: Sunday Historic Ford Podium: Tim Barber P1, Steve Romak P2, Oliver Ramleth P3
Bottom Left Center: Saturday Masters Podium - Marty Benck P1, Neil Porter P2 (Mitch Roth standing in for Neil), Eric Verdin P3
Bottom Right Center: Sunday Masters Podium: Neil Porter P1 (Riccardo Pinero standing in for Neil), Marty Benck P2, and Eric Verdin P3
Bottom Far Right: Fastest Mechanic Award Winner, Riccardo Pinero
