William Brinkop scored a hat-trick on his way to victory in the ST2 Championship at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. In a near-perfect weekend, Brinkop was the fastest in all but two sessions. Brinkop comfortably won the Friday and Saturday qualifying races in his C5 Z06 Chevrolet Corvette.
“My race was really good,” Brinkop said. “I’ve had issues in the last couple of years with mechanical problems or contact. So this year, I just focused strictly on ST2 and making my car as reliable as possible”
In the race, Brinkop started from pole, led from start to finish, and set the fast lap by 3 seconds. Behind him, however, there was a much bigger battle between Chuck Mathews in his C6 Corvette and Lee Arioto’s C5 Corvette. Mathews managed to start second while Arioto had to start in fourth. Eventually, Mathews was able to pull away from Arioto and finish 10 seconds up the road. However, Arioto’s fast lap was only .400 seconds slower than Mathews. Between the three of them, they managed to sweep the podium with not just Chevrolets but with Chevrolet Corvettes.
