Races 7 & 8 The Corkscrew Classic with CSRG
June 20-22, 2025
Round four of the Crossflow Cup was back at Laguna Seca for the second time this year, this time running the inaugural Corkscrew Classic with CSRG. Vincent Puleo has once again shared some of his great pictures on the Facebook Group page. Many thanks to everyone that posts pics and videos! The weekend started off on Friday with a test day that saw 27 of our 39 entries participating. Come race day, Linsey Hebert who recently completed drivers school but never had a chance to test, opted to run with group one. With the help of a great coach she improved her lap times every session and we look forward to having another Hebert run with group 6 at the Charity Challenge. CSRG Board President Ed Lauber chose to display his car for sale in the Paddock and concentrate on his board duties rather than run with us. After Saturday morning’s Qualifier we lost three more cars with engine issues: Jay streets, Steve Gomas, and Mark Keller. Green flag for the main race still saw a strong field of 34 Formula Fords take the grid.
Saturday’s race started with first time Crossflow Cup Pole sitter Greg Hoff leading the pack followed by Danny Baker and James Hakewell. The Club Ford group was led by Kelly Heil in 5th position followed by Patrick Flynn from Texas and John Plavan Jr. After a somewhat late green flag, Adam White quickly moved through the field taking the top spot with Dany and James moving up to second and third positions. On Lap 6 Dave Sandlin had an off in turn two bringing out the pace car and setting us up for a tight fight to the finish. Watching the clock, we were hoping for at least a couple lap race to the checker but going into turn 2 Greg Hoff and Oliver Abate came together. Unbeknownst to most of us, that meant this was going to be the last lap. Coming out of turn 11, it couldn’t have been any closer between Adam, Danny, and James. Danny and James were on the move looking to take advantage of the tow and it almost worked. Adam held on but only by .055 seconds. Adam turned in the fast lap of the session at 1:36.4. Club Ford saw Kelly Heil, Patrick Flynn and John Plavan Jr on the podium.
In 2025 The Crossflow Cup implemented a car compliance program to ensure we were all running on a level playing field. During the weigh in after Saturday's race we impounded three cars who had not yet applied for car compliance stickers. Skip Streets, Levi Zeidlhack and Patrick Flynn. Collin Ivey checked their engines for compliance and unfortunately two of the three cars had compression ratios over the limit and were disqualified from the results, Patrick Flynn and Levi Zeidlhack. We do appreciate them coming out from Dallas and Colorado. Both of them were very good drivers. Levi, at 16 years old, is the youngest driver we have had in the Crossflow Cup. We don’t blame the drivers or the car owners for the compliance violations. They both ran the rest of the weekend but were not eligible to score Crossflow Cup points or trophies. We hope they had fun and welcome them to run with us for championship points in the future. This moved Skip Streets with a compliant Van Diemen up to third in Club Ford. The Masters podium saw Ed VanTassle, Alex Dodd and Ed Abate Jr. The Top Gun shootout included Adam White again for the win, Greg Hoff for Pole and Ben Zlotkin moving up 18 places from his starting position for the Hard Charger.
Saturday's Podium celebration and raffle went off at 5 pm Sharp followed by free tacos for everyone in the paddock courtesy of CSRG. Thank you!
The raffle winners were:
Kelly Heil Old School Gasket set
Dan Wise Scott Young Enterprises
Skip Streets Jay Ivey Engines
John Plavan Jr Dezzani Digital Art
Mitch Roth Krauss Racing
Steve Jeffords Roger Kraus Racing
The grand prize winner of the Entry Fee Rebate was Steve Gomas
Hoosier Tires has given us a set of tires to give away at each of the remaining events. A huge thanks goes out to Bruce Foss and Tim Gerhardt for the generous donation.
The tire winner this week was Alan Dezzani
Sunday’s Qualifying Grid was set by the best lap times from Saturday’s race. Qualifying was as close as ever with Danny Baker squeezing out the pole on the last lap with a 1:36.5 followed by Adam White and James Hakewell. Club Ford was familiar with Kelly Heil, Patrick Flyn and John Plavan Jr. The Sunday race started off fast with Danny taking the lead going into turn 2. Unfortunately not everyone made it through turn 2 unscathed. Sam McCloud and Ed Abate Jr came together, causing Ed to spin in front of Chris Cook. All three suffered damage and the recovery truck was needed for two of them. Kelly got in front of Adam on the second lap but Adam got him back on lap four. Then Adam got Danny on lap 10 for the win. Danny was second, Club Ford Kelly Heil was third followed by James Hakewell for third in Historic Ford with JP and Skip in second and third place. The Masters podium was Ed VanTassle, Alex Dodd and Malon Brown. Top Gun Shootout stickers went to Danny for Pole, Adam for the win and Mr Indianapolis, Frederick Greis for the Hard Charger.
