A Full Field Battles at Historic Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca
by Jim McIlvaine
Photos by Kaleb Kelley
It's a good thing optima Ultimate Street Car series, presented by Advance Auto Parts, is such a friendly affair. If it wasn’t, there would be a lot of hurt feelings at the end of each weekend. There are racing series and other driving events, where someone can virtually guarantee a podium finish, if not a win, just by showing up and running in a certain class, but this series isn’t one of them.
A massive 14-car field took the green flag in the Speedtech GTV Class, making Brian Hobaugh’s win and invitation to the optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in Las Vegas hard-fought and well-earned. While the field was smaller in the No-Limit Engineering GTT Class for trucks, the challenge was still there and Dustin Reed’s ’72 C10 made sure of it. David Carroll’s ’74 Blazer had to post a better overall score than all but two of the cars in the GTV Class, to make sure he finished ahead of Reed in the truck class.
The deck was stacked even more against John McKissack’s ’71 MG BGT in the Geaux Moto GTC Class. While that class is normally filled with late-model compacts from Japan and Europe, it does allow for some vintage entries, as long as they don’t exceed 107” in wheelbase and are running a non-V8. McKissack checked both of those boxes, but with his build freshly-finished just hours before the event started, it served more of a shakedown and sort-out function, than anything resembling competition. The series will be back in action at the end of June at Road America and we expect another massive field to take to the track. You can learn more about the series and what’s involved in competition, by heading over to
www.DriveUSCA.com
Top Ten Overall
| Place | Name | Car | Class | Points |
| 1. | Bob Sobey | 2013 Nissan GT-R | GTS | 492 |
| 2. | Dave Schotz | 2022 Chevrolet Camaro | GT | 491 |
| 3. | Lane Farka | 2015 Porsche GT3 | GTL | 481 |
| 4. | John Falkner | 2021 Chevrolet Camaro | GT | 481 |
| 5. | Matt Ramirez | 2004 Ford Mustang | GT | 474 |
| 6. | Jordan Priestley | 2021 Tesla Model 3 | GTS | 471 |
| 7. | CB Ramey | 2024 Chevrolet Corvette | GTS | 460 |
| 8. | Brandon Hurst | 2021 Tesla Model S | GTS | 456 |
| 9. | Bryan Reilly | 2018 Chevrolet Camaro | GT | 453 |
| 10. | Jake Jackson | 2018 Chevrolet Camaro | GT | 451 |
QA1 First Timer Award
Scott Lezchuk 2020 Tesla Model 3
Anderson Composites Competitor’s Choice Award
Keith Corrigan 1955 Ford Thunderbird
Operational Speed Supply Most-Improved Driver
Matthew Waeckerle 2005 Lotus Elise
Advance Auto Parts Speedperks Showdown Winner
Sean Kelly 2008 Chevrolet Corvette
Scott Lezchuk 2020 Tesla Model 3
Anderson Composites Competitor’s Choice Award
Keith Corrigan 1955 Ford Thunderbird
Operational Speed Supply Most-Improved Driver
Matthew Waeckerle 2005 Lotus Elise
Advance Auto Parts Speedperks Showdown Winner
Sean Kelly 2008 Chevrolet Corvette
2024 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Schedule
March 1-3: Thunderhill Raceway
May 3-5: Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca
June 28-30: Road America
July 26-28: Portland International Raceway
August 16-18: Summit Point Motorsports Park
October 4-6: Virginia International Raceway
October 31 - November 6: OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational Las Vegas
Check out the full set of photos for this event on the HostMyJunk.com Gallery. Click here to see them all!
Remember to add the OPTIMA Network on Roku and watch all the past seasons of this series free and on-demand!
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