SALINAS, California – Cool temperatures and cloudless skies made for a fast surface at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Continental Tire Challenge cars late Friday afternoon, with the ST class taking to the track first, followed by the quicker GS cars.

In ST qualifying, the top three were all Mazda MX-5s: Justin Piscitell in the Alara Racing entry had a best time of 1 minute, 38.805 seconds, followed by Steven McAleer in the C.J. Wilson Racing entry with a time of 1:39.154. Third was Britt Casey in the Freedom Autsport MX-5, with a best lap of 1:39.573. Next fastest was a Honda Civic Si, and a Porsche Cayman rounded out the top five.

The GS cars took to the track next for their 15-minute qualifying session, but quite a few of the cars didn’t use the whole time allotted, choosing to knock out a few laps and park the car. Among them was polesitter Matt Bell, who set fast time of 1:35.765 on his second lap out in the Stevenson Camaro Z/28.R he shares with Lawson Aschenbach.

Second was a bit of a surprise with a lap of 1:36.024 in a Multimatic Ford Mustang Boss 302R shared by Jade Buford and Austin Cindric, son of Penske executive Tim Cindric. Third was Andrew Davis with a lap of 1:36.046 in another Stevenson Camaro. Fourth was a Porsche 911, fifth a Nissan 370Z.

Healthy field

It’s a healthy field, with 28 ST entries and 18 GS cars, for a total of 46 entries for the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix Powered by Mazda. In the first practice session, Matt and Hugh Plumb paced the GS field in the Rum Bum Racing Porsche 911, while Spencer Pumpelly and Luis Rodriguez were the fastest in the ST class in their RS1 Porsche Cayman.

In the second practice on Friday, Aschenbach and Bell topped the field in the Stevenson Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro Z/28R. In ST, the quickest car was the Freedom Autosport Mazda MX-5 of Casey and TUDOR Championship regular Tom Long.

Saturday’s Continental Tire Challenge race will be a long one at two and a half hours. It starts at 4 p.m. ET.