Project Update for April 2, 2014: This post covers the first day of the 3 day Optima Street Car/USCA event at Texas Motor Speedway March 21-23. We ran on 315/335 BFG Rival 200 treadwear tires on our 2011 Mustang as well as tested the Ford Racing M-2353-CA "Boss 302R" ABS/TC module, but left our existing Hoosier A6 suspension parts and settings untouched from the last TT3 event and Goodguys. I will split the event write-up over three different days.
What is the Ultimate Street Car Association?
The USCA was only created late last year and announced at SEMA. I hinted at it in my October post after Goodguys. Basically this is the new series created for the qualifier events for the
Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational, held every year the weekend after SEMA in Las Vegas. This series includes 3 days of competition in streetable cars on 200+ treadwear tires. Drivers go head-to-head in autocross, Speed Stop and road course time trials. You also have to prove the street worthiness by driving your car for 50-100 miles on an assigned route. The last part of the scored competition includes a Design and Engineering segment where 5 or more judges score each car with a number of categories that include various street equipment, craftsmanship, and creativity.
The video above is a good preview of what the series is about. This was a promo for a show that covers the 2013 Optima Invitational event, which is airing on MAVTV now. Getting an invite to this event is a big deal for most shops and amateur racers like ourselves and guarantees you a spot in the SEMA show the week before as well.
If you have been reading this build thread for a while you know that we have entered 3 of these Optima qualifiers before. The first Optima qualifier was an
ASCS "Run To The Alamo" in Feb 2012. That event was supposed to be a 3 day/3 event format with autocross, speed stop and road course times. They didn't check to see that this track (Harris Hill) didn't have a paddock or parking area big enough for the speed stop and autocross, so those 2 events were cancelled. During the road course event they had timer problems but I ran all day, in the pouring rain. We left after about 6 hours, soaking wet, about 30 minutes before they were supposed to stop running. I was in the lead. They ended up keeping the track open until dark, the rain cleared, the track dried off, I got beat, and didn't get an invite.
The second qualifier we entered was the
OPTIMA FACEOFF AT HOT ROD POWER TOUR in June of 2012. We fared a
little better at this televised and much more organized 3 day event, winning the autocross and coming in 3rd in the road course portion, but I got 14th place in the speed stop. I finished 3rd overall and didn't get an invite. At some of these Optima qualifiers they weren't even inviting the overall winner, but instead just picking people for their "spirit of the event" to invite to SEMA, as happened here. They later came back and offered an invite late in the year to the winner of the June event, local NASA TT racer Todd Earsley in his then yellow EVO.
Last but not least was the
GOODGUY'S ALL AMERICAN SUNDAY autocross at TMS in October of 2013. This was an Optima Qualifier but only had the autocross, and was one of Goodguys super tight "gymkhana" courses. I got 3 runs, was in the lead, so I was taking riders... ended up losing that event by .02 seconds - stupid mistake. They picked another car that didn't even place for the SEMA invite anyway.
I learned a lot about these Optima qualifiers over the past three years. Most qualifiers were being hosted in different series, sometimes with wildly varying competitions - some road course only, some autocross only, some had 3 day Optima style events, and others were random things like High Speed Open Road events. Not a consistent format. The event we did at Hot Rod Power Tour was more like the Optima Invitational, but we didn't take the event seriously enough and showed up on the WRONG tires: 295/35/18 Nitto NT-05s. What I quickly found out was THESE TIRES ARE NOT GOOD, and we quickly overheated them in the road course event. We also arrived at that event with a poor brake pad selection (Hawk DTC-70) that were too hard for slow speed use, and a leaking power brake booster fitting that killed the vacuum assist. I used the same set of 295 Nittos last October at Goodguys, and that didn't help my chances.
USCA Rules: http://ultimatestreetcarassociation.com/usca-rules/
Probably due to the old Optima qualifier inconsistencies, USCA was created to host
consistent and
competition based events,
and all 10 of their events on the 2014 calendar are hosted at notable road courses which can hold all 3 driving formats: autocross, speed stop and road course. They are run by the same group of people that host the Optima Invitational in Vegas, so the events are more representative of the "big show" held after SEMA. For 2014 the USCA has kept
one "spirit of the event" selection per event but offers an Optima invite to the winner of each of THREE different classes: 3000+ pound 2WD, under 3000 pound 2WD and AWD. This means 4 invites go out at each event, and 3 of them are going to be somewhat serious competitors that won out over a class of entrants. I like that - awarding the winners instead of mostly "spirit selections" made at previous events. Good move. The three class format also separates the lightweight and AWD cars from the traditional heavy RWD pony cars, which meant we might have a better shot in our 3550 pound Mustang.
Last but not least, they have a TV contract for all of the USCA events. The Optima Invitational has been filmed and aired almost every year since its inception but the qualifiers rarely were. In 2012 about half a dozen of the qualifiers were televised, and we got some TV exposure at the June 2012 event. All ten of the 2014 USCA qualifiers will be televised, starting around August 8th on MAVTV. So you get 3 days of racing, good food, some swag, television time, and 4 people from each event get invites to Optima/SEMA? That's a lot of value for the money! Yes, the entry fee is higher now than at some past events... but let me tell you now: IT WAS WORTH IT!
We had SO much fun at this USCA event that I can barely put it into words. And anyone can enter... it doesn't take a "pro" driver or a $200K car to win this thing - I'm living proof of that: I'm admittedly a hack autocrosser in a heavy Mustang with a stock motor and still
won an invite to Optima Invitational! with the overall win. We are super excited about that, and want you readers to really think about finding a USCA event nearby and checking it out. At least go out to WATCH, but if you have a streetable car and 200 treadwear tires, you should ENTER. This three day event was the most fun I've EVER had with my clothes on!
USCA at TMS, Friday March 21st, 2014
Before we get started, a note about the pictures: There's a LOT of them. Some of these were copied from other people's posts on Facebook and are credited. Anything with a Vorshlag watermark is something that either Amy or I shot with our Nikon, or one of our cell phones, or that Brandon shot with his gear. If it is a GOOD picture, just assume Brandon took it.
Brandon took some of the best pictures from one of our events we attended... ever. That means this series of posts is very heavy on the photos, and each one with a Vorshlag watermark can be clicked for a higher rez version. Sadly he was only able to come out on Sunday (road course and final awards), so all of the autocross, speed stop and road rally pics were ones that Amy and I took. There's over 530 pictures from this event in the gallery linked below - I can't show them all, but many are worth looking at!
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