The Bugle Sounds, the Charge Begins
The 2022 season got underway at Laguna Seca on May 21/22. A new format of double race weekends meant a different approach for our racers, keen on hauling the largest amount of points possible for the weekend.
Round 1:
Blue skies and sunshine welcomed the field of 36 cars as they took to the track on Saturday morning to knock the rust off, warm up engines and tires, and start their respective 2022 campaigns. A mixed bag of strategic approaches saw the grid take shape, with most of the grid taking 7-8 laps to find their fastest time. In the end however, overall and HF pole was secured by Andrew Wait in his Titan, followed by Martin Lauber, Danny Baker, and Hoosier runner Dan Cowdrey. Brian Swanson showed his winter's efforts payed off with a CF pole, followed .04 sec back by our 2021 CF champ Kelly Heil.
The grid rolled off at 2:15 sharp to begin their pace lap, polesitter Andrew Wait showing up moments before the largest grid of the weekend was released; a last minute battery failure taking the focus away from any possible pre-race jiitters. The field formed up nicely coming out of turn 11 for what was to be a fairly late green. The top ten went 3 and 4 wide heading down to turn 2 and commenced a four wheeled mosh pit, with Wait, Lauber, and Baker at the point, followed closely by Cowdrey, Romak, Carter, Heil, Porter, Swanson, and Colyvas rounding out the top ten. Wait and Lauber traded the lead for the first few laps with Baker never far behind but the real action was happening further back. Not much further back...
James Hakewill was trying to sort an ill-handling Crossle, while simultaneously fight his way forward and fend off the attacks of Jay Streets in his "new" Titan Mk5 and Ed VanTassel's Mk6. James would eventually come out in 11th place but admittedly still stumped by the handling woes. Perennial Club Ford podium runners Dan Wise and "the Mongoose" Jeff Rothman had eventful runs (Dan having more luck with his tire pressures in the afternoon than he had in the morning), and the pair would split Tom Minnich's Tiga at the finish.
Chris Schoap was marching his way forward from his 29th place starting position, setting his fastest lap on the final lap and winding up in 25th, less than a second adrift from the Crossle pair of Jim Lynn and series newcomer Dalmo de Vasconcelos. 2 points and the $150 Wine Country Motorsports gift card for our Reilly & Company Hard Charger went to Paul Kitchen; he finished up a sneeze out of the top ten. The HF podium was Wait, Lauber and Baker while the CF podium was Heil, Swanson, and Neil Porter.
Round 2:
8:30 Sunday morning and our racers were primed and ready to attack second round qualifying! The traditional CSRG oil down in the session before ours meant that the track wasn't ideal for fast laps straight off, and for most of our drivers their qualifying times were set on lap 6. Times were about a second slower than they had been on Saturday, most drivers chocking this up to the aforementioned slick track conditions. Wait again ended up P1 at the end of the session, but Jellyman Kelly Heil pulled out a rocket lap on his final tour and found 1.5 seconds to end up .3 off pole on the outside front row, and class pole. Baker was to start an uncharacteristic 6th (which would later complicate his race), but the standout of qualifying was Ed VanTassel with a 10th place run, a stellar effort in a stacked field in difficult conditions. Art Hebert had his transponder issues from Saturday sorted and stuck his Titan outside row 6. And our long haul driver of the weekend all the way from New York, Fred Greis was continuing to enjoy his return to the FF fray and learn his way around Laguna.
Another late green flag meant the whole of the field was on the front straight before the slobberknocker commenced. This made for incredibly close quarters heading into T2 but all 35 cars made it through safely! The battle at the front was all Andrew Wait and Martin Lauber; the 3rd thru 9th place battle was fast and furious with Heil, Cowdrey, Baker, Swanson, Romak, Carter, and Dr Nick Colyvas who was still coming to grips with his defection to the Titan Army. Cowdrey led the second echelon but was admittedly on old tires, and so he struggled to hold pace and keep the car pointed forward so the pack battled while the lead pair got away. Baker's Lotus was able to run frontline pace once he got clear of the scrum, but it was for naught as he couldn't close the gap to the dogfighting duo and their Titans. Jack Wilson was having a great run, on his way to earning the Reilly & Company Hard Charger award, eventually finishing behind the charging Steve Yarborough in his bright red Crossle.
Like all the sessions before it, our race went green flag the whole way and in some cases it was a arduous balancing act to keep the early race pace up. Stamina was an area the mid pack didn't lack though, and the battle for 15th to 21st included Jay Streets, James Hakewill, the ever-improving Tom Minnich, Mike Wirrick (also continuing to coming to grips with his Titan), Chris Schoap and Dan Wise!
As the checkered flag fell, Wait again took top honors with Lauber P2 and Baker P3. Kelly Heil was running solidly in the lead of CF until the start of the penultimate lap when he spun exiting T11, handing the top spot on the podium to Brian Swanson, in his first Crossflow Cup class win! Heil ended up P2 with Neil Porter again taking the third spot on the CF podium.
