Season Opener, Sonoma

The 2024 season kicked off last month with a bang. 2024 is to be a season of firsts for Crossflow Cup; new pavement at Sears Point, the first 4 rounds taking place on back-to-back weekends, and (as it would turn out) the first real rain race to happen in several years.

An IndyCar-esque field of 33 cars took to the track for Rounds 1 and 2, eager to try out the fresh blacktop at Sonoma and see what magical laptimes it held. The forecast was lovely, the tracktime was due to be great, and our drivers and crews were anxious to get the 2024 season underway.

Qualifying 1:
The tension on grid was palpable at the 2 minute board as the 132 cereal bowl shaped Kent pistons loped away. The grid was so anxious to go in fact, that they released themselves at the 1 (instead of waiting for grid control to release them).

Adam White went P1 at the close of lap 2 before a black flag all put a temporary hold to qualifying. Greg Hoff had, by his own admission, a "money shift" at the top of the hill and emptied a quantity of oil that was moments before inside his engine onto the fresh black asphalt. Eric Verdin was one of the first on the scene and an unfortunate victim of an ice skating rink. While Hoff's weekend was finished due to crankcase ventilation, Verdin's was due to bent suspension and small chassis damage.

Following a healthy clean up, the grid was re-released for a scant 3 lap blast before the clocks hammered a close to the session. Kelly Heil pipped Adam White for the top spot (and CF class pole) on lap 4 of the session with a 1:46.2, White to his outside, followed by Mark Smith with a HF class pole in P3 overall, with Brian Forster, Ed VanTassel, and Tim Monahan filling out the top 3 rows.

A little further back, Eric Verdin did manage to claim the 11th spot with only 1 flying lap (impressive!) before retiring for the weekend, Mace Gjerman (making his FF return after decades away) in P15, series newcomers Malon Brown P19 in his Titan HF, John Ostlund in 21st in his Crossle, and our Northern connection of Glenn Woloski and Michael Nau ended up P28 and P30 respectively.

Race 1:
Race 1 didn't fire off as planned. The phosphorescent green hillsides accented the bright colored grid of (mostly) British formula cars as they snaked around behind the pace car, spoiling for a fight. Unfortunately, Mace Gjerman had a brake issue crop up 2/3 of the way thru the pace lap causing the field to circulate behind the pace car for the first two laps of the '24 season. However, once the wrecker crew had him cleared off safely, the grid formed up nicely two-by-two and a wonderful start saw the snarling horde go 4 wide up the hill into 2 on lap 1.

Adam White immediately put his bright yellow Lola 540 out into the lead, showing his clear intent for the CF points lead. Kelly Heil, in his orange "E"-model Lola 540, showed he wasn't going to go down without a fight however and managed to edge past White for a beat on the second green lap before relinquishing the point back to White in turn 7. No one was going to touch either version of Lola 540 this weekend as Heil and White turned race laps in the 1:44's, being the first two Crossflow competitors in history to do so. Mark Smith finished up P3 overall (1st in HF) but was a solid 7 seconds back at the checker.

Jay Streets opened his 2024 account with a solid run, moving into the top 10 overall (9 OA, 6th in HF) quickly and stayed there for the balance of the race, running a strong race pace in the low 1:47's, and finishing just ahead of Plavan's Crossle in 10th (4th in CF). Rob Thull enjoyed his first Crossflow Cup race as a Club Ford competitor (Rob raced a few seasons with a Titan in HF), and is now officially a Crossle convert finishing up 21st OA and 7th in CF. Oliver Ramleth had a solid run, and although he was adrift of Smith's Titan, he had a great battle with Brian Forster's Tiga (who ran a career best 3rd in CF) and the duo finished up just forward of Ed VanTassel who also showed he was here to play in 2024 with a solid 3rd place in HF.

Glenn Woloski was really on the gas, moving forward to take the $100 Racers Safety Source Hard Charger award, Glenn was head and shoulders above anyone else possibly in contention for the award, moving up 9 spots overall in the race and taking a solid 12 seconds off his qualifying time in his first race at Sonoma. Our man Glenn is clearly a fast learner! Glenn edged out series regulars Mike Wirrick and Fred Greis; Fred finished up with a series high finish of P18 (P12 in HF).

Left : Saturday Masters Podium - Marty Benck P1, Chris Schoap P2, Tom Minnich P3
Left Center: CF Podium - Adam White (and Jr Crew!) P1, Kelly Heil P2, Brian Forster P3

Right Center: HF Podium - Mark Smith P1, Oliver Ramleth P2, Ed VanTassel P3
Far Right: Raffle Winner, Kelly Heil!

Qualifying 2:
"Swinging for the fences" is the only way to describe Adam White's performance in Q2. Not satisfied with a lap record in Race 1, he knocked almost a whole second off his Saturday best with a 1:43.4. For the record (pardon the pun), Adam set these laps on tires that were new last October at Laps for Laguna. Putting firmly to rest the age old adage that you need new tires to go fast in Crossflow Cup. (Your series director thanks you for this Adam). More on this as we move onto the race report for Rounds 3 and 4.

Kelly Heil was P2 with a mega lap of his own, a 1:44.1, Mark Smith and John JP Plavan in row 2 both in the 45's with the dueling Titan Twins of Will Jackson and Oliver Ramleth occupying row 3. Tom Minnich set a new PB to put himself in the 13th spot just behind Marty Benck in the 47's, and Saturday's Hard Charger Glenn Woloski was clearly showing he had made room to bring speed along with racecraft in his trailer from Canada, with a 1:49 to put him in the 14th spot at the close of qualifying.

Fred Greis had a solid effort to wind up P18 and Oliver Abate kept improving throughout the weekend, Q2 ending finding him in the 19th spot. Tom Blackmon also kept improving in his first Crossflow weekend and with the help of some small weld repair overnight to a halfshaft (thanks Aaron!) he was down into the 57's to roll off on the outside of row 14 for Race 2.

Race 2:
Once again a textbook start was put in play by the front row, keeping the moshpit-to-be lined up square and straight until the green flag waved. White, as polesitter, chose the outside, but at the drop of the flag Jellyman Kelly Heil jumped to an early lead, with Mark Smith moving to challenge for the 2nd spot on the outside of White as they headed towards T1. A little further back Fred Greis jumped for an opening that quickly closed in front of him. Taking evasive action he moved hard right to avoid a collision with Dave Sandlin, but unfortunately came in contact with the outside wall. As the field went into T2, Fast Eddie VanTassel had a spin that knocked him out of top 10 contention, and forcing him to try to fight his way forward for the rest of the race. White would be back in P1 by the close of lap 1.

The pace car came out at the end of lap 2 to clear Greis' dinged up Titan, but the FCY was short lived. When the field got back to fighting, it returned to status quo from before the yellow at the front. The real battle was between the Titan of Jay Streets (HF) the Tiga of Brian Forster (CF) Chris Schoap in his Titan (HF) Glenn Woloski's Van Diemen (CF), and Tom Minnich's Tiga (CF) as they furiously fought, slugging it out for 7th-12th place. A small mistake by Paul Kitchen on the last lap put him square in the middle of this argy bargy, where he would drag race Minnich out of T11 on the last lap to take 12th (7th in HF).

Mace Gjerman was determined to make good on the previous day's issues, and ran solidly in the low 1:50's to wind up in the 16th spot, ending up one behind VanTassel's charging Titan. Dave Sandlin was just ahead of these two, putting in a really solid drive and a new PB lap time of 1:48.9.

The lead cars eventually stretched to where Plavan in 6th (3rd in CF) was not really in striking distance of Jackson in 5th (3rd in HF), who in turn was several carlengths back from Ramleth in 4th (2nd in HF) who was several seconds adrift of Smith in 3rd (1st in HF). Smith was north of 5 seconds back from Heil was a similar gap from White at the finish. White put on an absolute clinic at the point though, never really relinquishing the top spot and just to punctuate it further, took another couple tenths off his qualifying time with another Crossflow CF lap record 1:43.2.

Mitch Roth moved up 4 spots to 18th from his qualifying spot to take Hard Charger, Malon Brown had a solid close to his first Crossflow weekend to end up 19th overall (12th in HF), followed by Sam McCord's Zink and John Ostlund's Crossle (8th and 9th in CF, respectively). Oli Abate lost a few spots but closed out his first Crossflow weekend on a good note, building some momentum for the following weeks fight at Laguna Seca.

Left: Sunday Masters Podium: Marty Benck P1, Chris Schoap P2, Tom Minnich P3
Left Center: Sunday CF Podium: Adam White P1,Kelly Heil P2, John Plavan Jr P3
Right Center: Sunday Historic Ford Podium: Mark Smith P1, Oliver Ramleth P2, Will Jackson P3
Far Right: Our new Wine Trophies!

Below: Pit Lane

**Above:**
The dominant chassis of Rounds 1 and 2, seen here in both forms. The standard US-spec Lola 540 in the hands of Adam White, and the euro-model 540E wheeled by Kelly Heil

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS

Beer and wine for the whole weekend were supplied by Greg Hoff as amea culpato his Crossflow friends for the Q1 oildown. Thanks Greg! Your friends forgive you, and want you to know you are welcome to buy the beer again anytime even without oiling the track.

Fastest Wrench awards this weekend went to Kelly Heil's brother Kris on Saturday and Adam White's dad Phil on Sunday.

The Hard Charger award ($100 toRacers Safety Source) went on Saturday to Glenn Woloski and on Sunday to Mitch Roth. This also qualified both drivers for the Top Gun Shootout at the Charity Challenge this fall. Thanks to Chris fromRacers Safety Sourcefor being our newest series sponsor!

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 seenhere) This weekend's print was won by Ed VanTassel who will have a lovely portrait of his Titan to hang on his wall!

TheIvey Enginescrew donated some gift certificates, which were won by Tom Blackmon and George Jewett. Thanks to the whole Ivey family for continuing to support Crossflow Cup, and for all that you do for Formula Ford racing nationwide! We absolutely could not do this without their support.

The CSRG Top Gun Shootout qualifiers for this weekend were: Kelly Heil, Glenn Woloski, Adam White, and Mitch Roth.

SRSDonated a can of Amsoil fogger which was won by Chris Schoap, and series sponsorScott Young Enterprisesdonated a ($350 value!) genuine Hewland Mk series dog ring which was won by Tom Minnich. Thanks Scotty for continuing to help out Crossflow!

Terran Swanson has donated a couple of race worn Team Ganassi drivers suits to be raffled off throughout the season. This weekend we had one from the 2023 Toronto IndyCar race, which was won by Kelly Heil.

Trophies for the 2024 Crossflow season are provided by Brian Forster and the Kitchen family in a wonderful show of teamwork. Each podium finisher will receive a custom engraved bottle of Twisting Turns wine, adorned with a medal around the neck of the bottle. Even if you drink the wine (and you should!) you have a lovely trophy for the shelf!

2024 Season Opener, Sonoma

Season Opener, Sonoma

PARTY HIGHLIGHTS