Ybarra Becomes the Runoffs’ Youngest Champion After a Formula F Duel

Feature photo: Formula Ford cars Nos. 17 and 88 at the 2009 SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Road America, September 27, 2009. Archival class photograph, taken before the Formula F name was adopted. This is an archive image, not Ybarra or the 2026 race. Photo: Royalbroil, FF17TonyCoello88.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia 1280px rendition; no editorial crop or content edits.

David Ybarra became the youngest winner in SCCA Runoffs history on October 4, taking the Formula F championship at Road America at age 14. His No. 06 Mygale SJ14 Honda finished ahead of Cooper Travis and Theodore Burns.

Ybarra and Travis pulled eight seconds clear by lap five. Jonathan Kotyk’s Turn 5 retirement and Calvin Kautz’s Turn 3 spin disrupted the pursuit.

The finish came early. A multi-car incident triggered a full-course caution as Travis challenged into Turn 5; debris then prompted black flags and the race’s end. SCCA’s official report says the order reverted to just before the caution, putting Ybarra first. The published result records 10 laps and a 0.215-second margin. That gap is a classification detail, not a description of an uninterrupted sprint to the flag.

The pace was there before Sunday

Ybarra’s 2:23.047 qualifying lap had already earned pole on his first Runoffs appearance. The event offered three qualifying sessions across two days, so the front row was decided before the pressure of the championship race. Each Tire Rack Pole Award also carried a $500 award to spend at Tire Rack. The qualifying list does not mark Ybarra’s time as a new class track record.

The result had a season’s worth of preparation behind it. In its September 25 preview, SCCA identified Ybarra as the Formula F Hoosier Super Tour points leader. He had won twice at Road Atlanta and twice at Watkins Glen, then taken a win and a second at the Chicago Region June Sprints. Those results gave his Runoffs debut substance well before the age record became the headline.

SCCA nevertheless picked Kotyk to win. His four previous Formula F titles, earned in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, made the case for experience. Calvin Kautz also arrived with a 2024 Runoffs pole to his name. The preview’s prediction was wrong, but its reasoning shows the standard the newcomer had to meet.

A familiar place for a new name

Formula F has long mixed developing drivers with established specialists. SCCA’s class history traces its national championship back to Skip Barber’s 1969 title. The original Formula Ford name changed after Honda power became eligible for the 2010 season. SCCA describes a wingless class open to multiple constructors, with Barber, Jimmy Vasser and Dave Weitzenhof among its national champions.

That history helps explain the cars in the archive photographs. The silhouette is spare: exposed wheels, a narrow cockpit and no separate front or rear wings. Different chassis are part of the class’s identity. The Mygale photograph below offers a closer view of that layout; it shows Sebastian Naranjo at Mid-Ohio in 2023.

The earlier teenage landmark

A decade earlier, Formula F had produced another record-setting teenager. Neil Verhagen’s 2016 victory at Mid-Ohio made him the youngest SCCA national champion at the time, aged 15 years and 242 days. Driving a Mygale Honda, he built a large lead, lost it to a full-course caution and then pulled away again after the restart.

The useful comparison is the demand for speed in different circumstances. Verhagen’s afternoon required a second escape after the field regrouped. This year’s race ended under a different sequence of flags. Neither championship can be understood from the winner’s age alone.

Watch the whole race develop

SCCA’s October 14 replay guide links the full Saturday and Sunday broadcasts and all 23 class reports. Formula F is in the Sunday recording; the linked event schedule helps locate it within the day. The guide also points readers to SCCA’s YouTube channel for individual race uploads; the full-day recording is the viewing route linked from that guide.

For a club racer, watching the complete sequence is more useful than skipping straight to the podium. Follow how the field separates, where the chasing cars lose contact and what race control displays as the closing contest changes. The race report and replay belong together.

Reporting checked October 15, 2026. The race took place October 4. The linked race report labels its results official. All three photographs are dated archive images of the class or venue, not photographs of Ybarra or the 2026 race.

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