Prior to this year’s Formula F (FF) race at the 60th anniversary SCCA® National Championship Runoffs® presented by Sunoco, taking place Sept. 28-Oct. 6, 2024, at Road America, the record for the most Runoffs wins in the class was set at four. Now, thanks to Jonathan Kotyk and his No. 5 Ford-powered Swift DB6, the record book reads five.

In 2022, Kotyk had tied the record of four FF Runoffs wins – a record originally set by Dave Weitzenhof in 1987. With his 2024 Runoffs gold medal, Kotyk wrote a new page in SCCA’s FF history book. But the road to victory wasn’t easy.

Starting on the Tire Rack Pole was 19-year-old Calvin Kautz. While 2024 marked Kautz’s third appearance at the National Championship event, until this year, his best starting position had been fifth. In 2024, he earned the pole with a time of 2:22.552 – although it should have come as no surprise, as his father Tim is a perennial class frontrunner. All told, Tim has three Runoffs titles to his name; Calvin was undoubtedly looking to notch one for himself.

Driving the No. 88 River City/Hoosier/Two Dogg Piper DF3D Honda, Kautz had qualified 0.181sec ahead of Kotyk.

When the green flew on Friday during the first of three Hagerty Race Days at the Runoffs, Kautz hammered down as the 13-car field rocketed toward Turn 1 of the 4.048-mile, 14-turn circuit – a historic racetrack located mere minutes from Elkhart Lake, WI.

Theodore Burns, however, lit a fire at the start, jumping from third to first – but by Turn 5, Kotyk was once again up front, followed by Kautz in second. A turn later, Kautz had slotted himself into the lead, with Burns in third. Maintaining his fourth position starting lap two was Sebastian Mateo Naranjo – although Naranjo exchanged that position for second overall a few turns later.

The top six breakaway pack simply wouldn’t sit still. Lap after lap, the leaders spread out with every passing opportunity. That battle allowed Tazio Stefanelli to join Demetrios Constantinidis and William Ferguson at the tail end of the front pack. A few laps later, Nathan Down and Antonio Costantino made the frontrunners nine strong.

Keeping track of who held what position was more than impossible, with shuffling taking place turn after turn, lap after lap. Two cars might pull a half-second gap, but two corners later, they were bunched once more.

The racing, though, was as clean as it was aggressive.

Lap 10 brought the first significant contact for the front pack, as Naranjo and Kautz touched tires entering Turn 5. Kautz launched into the air, stopped, and then rejoined the pack, the contact removing him from the front pack.

Into the last lap, anyone in the top five stood a shot at the win.

The cars bobbed and weaved in their last time through Turn 5, with Kotyk holding strong at the front. Exiting the Kink, though, Burns and Kotyk made nose-to-tail contact, pushing Burns into the inside wall, leaving Kotyk with a small gap to drive to the win. At the stripe, it was Kotyk up front, 0.662sec ahead of the three cars that were battling for the remaining podium spots. In that fight, Stefanelli claimed second, Naranjo took third, and Down finished fourth – 0.146sec covered the gap from second place to fourth.

“The first half [of the race], everyone was pretty antsy, so I let them go have fun for the first half and then let my Hoosier tires come in and got the win,” Kotyk said after the race, moments before spraying Mazza Sparkling Wine during the podium celebration.

“I just needed to keep the car out front,” the Buccaneer Region member explained of his end-of-race strategy. “I studied 2020's videos multiple times and just re-ran it through my head. OK, what can I do better this year? And made sure that I kept the car out front, as best as possible, [and] took it easy.”

This was second-place finisher Stefanelli’s first time at the Runoffs, leaving the Blackhawk Valley Region member ecstatic with his silver medal. “It was amazing,” he said after emerging from his No. 23 Millennium Forms Spectrum FF 1600 Honda. “ first time ever here at the Runoffs and I had the best race of my life. just clean racing, hard racing, but everyone was very fair.”

Also a Runoffs rookie, Central Illinois Region member Naranjo was just as pleased with the bronze medal he earned driving his No. 80 Ares Elite Vision/MNR Mygale SJ14 Honda. “The race was chaotic and I really had so much fun … from my point of view, we just had action-packed from start to finish like we do in the pro series, and to me, it was hard racing but fair racing, and this is what I love most about it.”

Down crossed the line fourth in his Swift DB6 Honda, followed by Constantino in his Piper DL7 Honda. The Sunoco Hard Charger Award went to Naranjo, who drove from his seventh starting position to finish third.

The 60th anniversary SCCA® National Championship Runoffs® presented by Sunoco is the pinnacle of American amateur motorsports and crowns Sports Car Club of America’s Road Racing National Champions this year at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI, during Hagerty Race Days running Friday, Oct. 4, through Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024.

Live, online video coverage of Runoffs races, presented by Mazda, is available throughout the three days of competition at SCCA.com/runoffs-live. Live timing and scoring for each race are also available at SCCA.com/pages/runoffs-live-timing.

Below are provisional results for Friday’s Formula F race at the 2024 SCCA® National Championship Runoffs, with finish position, starting position in parentheses, driver, hometown, car, and laps completed.

1, (2), Jonathan Kotyk, Atlantic Beach, FL, Swift DB6 Ford, 13.
2, (5), Tazio Stefanelli, Rockford, IL, Spectrum FF1600 Honda, 13.
3, (7), Sebastian Mateo Naranjo, Edwards, IL, Mygale SJ14 Honda, 13.
4, (8), Nathan Down, Thornton, CO, Swift DB6 Honda, 13.
5, (4), Antonio Costantino, Lampton Shores, ON, Piper DL7 Honda, 13.
6, (9), Demetrios Constantinidis, Chicago, IL, Van Diemen DP08 Honda, 13.
7, (1), Calvin Kautz, Geneva, IL, Piper DF3D Honda, 13.
8, (3), Theodore Burns, Fitchburg, WI, Piper DF05 Honda, 13.
9, (12), Eric Poulsen, Clovis, CA, Piper DL7 Honda, 13.
10, (10), Michael Dowden, Newtown, PA, Piper DL7 Honda, 13.
11, (11), Jay Messenger, Muleshoe, TX, Van Diemen RF99 Honda, 13.
12, (13), Robert Gross, Washington Twp, MI, Piper DL7 Honda, 13.
13, (6), William Ferguson, Pacifica, CA, Piper DL7 Honda, 12.

Race Stats

Length of Race: 52.62 miles
Overall Time of Race: 31:21.295 (avg. 100.700 mph)
Margin of Victory: 00.662 seconds
Fastest Race Lap: 2:22.057 (102.584 mph)
Lap Leaders: #5, Laps 1-2, 6, 10, 13; #81, Laps 3, 5, 12; #88, Lap 4; #23, Laps 7-9, 11
Sunoco Hard Charger: #80 Sebastian Mateo Naranjo

Photo by Rick Corwine