It’s been a rollercoaster of a season for SportsCar Challenge teammates Pierre Kleinubing and Roy Block, but the duo finally pulled out the Street Tuner (ST) victory Saturday evening at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Before the victory, Kleinubing and Block had finished on the podium only twice this season with two third-place finishes, the most recent coming in the series’ last race at VIRginia International Raceway last month.
This is also the first year that the two drivers have been paired together and the first full season for Block in the Continental Tire Challenge. Kleinubing posted a blazing lap in qualifying to start the No. 75 C360R Audi S3 from the pole, but the car fell to mid-pack and the team battled back.
“We got a little unlucky in the middle with the yellows, but then we got lucky again with the yellows in the end,” Kleinubing said. “I just had more traction. My car’s all-wheel drive, and with the Continentals, it seemed to be the quick combination today. I was able to launch out of the slow corners better and that’s how I got around the guys. At the end, we were all running the same pace, but I had a gap.”
“With the track record we’ve had with this car, it’d probably be the last car you’d pick to win the four-hour race and here we are. This proves how much work C360R has done lately. We probably have one of the best cars in the paddock right now.”
While C360R has one victory so far this year in the GS class, this is the team’s first ST win since Kyle Gimple and Paul Holton claimed the checkered flag in 2015 at Road Atlanta.
The ST class provided thrilling action for the duration of the race, with the top cars trading the lead 10 times. In the No. 26 Freedom Autosport Mazda MX-5, Liam Dwyer and Andrew Carbonell, who made his 100th Continental Tire Challenge start this weekend, took home the second-place trophy and Sarah Cattaneo and Owen Trinkler followed up their VIR victory with a third-place finish in the No. 44 CRG-I-Do-Borrow Nissan Altima.
Despite early mechanical issues with the No. 56 Murillo Racing Porsche Cayman that removed the car from contention for the victory, Eric Foss retained the ST championship lead with a 13th-place finish alongside co-driver Justin Piscitell, who replaced the injured Jeff Mosing for the remainder of the season. Foss holds a 16-point lead over the No. 17 RS1 Porsche of Spencer Pumpelly and Nick Galante heading into the final race of the season at Road Atlanta on Oct. 6.