It's an idea the HOT ROD staff has had for a couple of years but never followed through on: invite a bunch of high-end muscle cars (with a definite Pro Touring vibe) to a road racetrack, make their owners actually drive them hard, and then report on how they worked. Our suspicion was that many of them would fall flat on their 335-wide tires, victims of trying to do too much with too many trick parts and not enough actual tuning. Again, we had the idea but never did anything with it. That is, until Optima Batteries' Jimi Day gave us a call.
His plan was to rent a road course outside Las Vegas and invite some of the newly finished cars from the prior week's SEMA show out for a fun track day. Air Ride Technologies' Bret Voelkel and designer Murray Pfaff were also part of the scheme, and we came up with a three-test shootout where the best overall vehicle would be crowned the king.
The place was Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch (www.springmountainmotorsports.com) in Pahrump, Nevada, a 2.2-mile road course northwest of Vegas. Joining Optima, Air Ride, and HOT ROD as sponsors were K&N, Magnaflow Exhaust, Shelby Automobiles, PPG, Pfaff Designs, and FM3 Performance Marketing, and the invitees were 20 of the top street machines from the SEMA show, plus a few exhibition cars just for fun. The rules were simple: Production cars only (no purpose-built race cars or kit cars) and they must run on street tires with a 180-or-higher tread wear rating. Drivers must have a helmet and a harness for the event, but that's about it. The tests included two open-track sessions, a short autocross course, a 0-60-0 competition, and then judging for style and build quality. Points were cumulative for all the events, and the car with the most total points was named the Optima Batteries Ultimate Street Car. Turn to page 62 to find out who that was. The only real hitch in the program came when the timing equipment for the 0-60-0 failed, forcing us to drop that portion of the test. Other than that, it was a great day at the track, with cars being thrashed on that you really didn't expect to be thrashed on. In the end, there was a single winner. Several cars bowed out with mechanical failure, but all who participated gave it hell and didn't baby their equipment, so in that regard, it was a resounding success.
The plan is to do it again after SEMA '09, with modifications based on what was learned in 2008. If you have a car you think needs to compete and can get it to Nevada come SEMA time, send an email to hotrod@hotrod.com.
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