Ultimate Street Car Association (USCA)?

I think you'll find that "Ultimate" is a cost-no-object exercise for most people. Or "effort no object". Something like this would never be cheap or easy to win.

On a related note, Targa Newfoundland released a tweaked rule set for 2014. Hmm...

Keith Tanner wrote: I think you'll find that "Ultimate" is a cost-no-object exercise for most people. Or "effort no object". Something like this would never be cheap or easy to win.

Didn't say it should be easy or cheap. I just think they should rename the judging. It's not really an engineering competition. Call it the "design and size of your wallet subjective score" or something. By definition if my car is as fast as your and took half the money to build, mine is better engineered.

I have no problem with them making looks a big criteria, but not under the guise of "engineering"

Who says there isn't engineering? Joe posted a picture of a Ford GT wearing an old Mustang as a hat. There's some engineering there, even if there are potentially shiny parts as well. Just because someone got paid to do it doesn't mean it isn't engineering.

Cars that are just bolt-on parts from accessory catalogs won't be competitive.

Keith Tanner wrote: Cars that are just bolt-on parts from accessory catalogs won't be competitive.

+1

Not every competition needs to have a low budget. Granted, I'd be more impressed by the guy who builds a worldbeater at a reasonable cost, but it adds to the event to have the big dollar guys there.

Show up to an event, check out the engineering part of the contest in person. If you then think it's rigged, say so. If you dismiss a contest based on conjecture and rumor, or preconceived notions, than you are only doing yourself a disservice.

Keep in mind that contests like this wouldn't exist without sponsorship $$. Keeping sponsors happy, while at the same time upholding the integrity of a contest is no easy task. If they can pull off a contest that gets useful products in front of people that need them--- and at the same time this sponsorship pays for a killer event----everyone wins. I'm sure that is the goal.

These guys are gearheads first.......the business partnerships are key in making things happen, but first and foremost it's about the cars.

I'm definitely very interested. I guess I have kind of a slanted view of engineering (imagine that, an engineer with a slanted view of engineering)

if you have two cars with equal performance, I think the better engineered one is the one that cost less to get to that performance point.

things like putting a mustang onto an GT, what problem did that solve? again, to me that's design. That's in the land of feel good fluffy clouds, architects riding unicorns, and nothing at all to do with what IN MY OPINION makes a great street car.

Is it unique? yeah, is it cool? hell yeah, would that be on MY list of ultimate street cars? NOPE.

I know I'm weird on this one, I accept it. I just like to screw with what people call engineering when I can.

Like I said call it the "oooh shiny thing, make a car that a girl will be interested to ride in design contest" and I feel it should be included, just leave engineering out.

If you look at it as being an old Mustang that performs like a GT, it's definitely solved some problems > Or maybe a Ford GT with headroom.

That was just one example. Coming up with a whole new suspension to make a show car handle as if it's 40 years newer probably counts as your definition of engineering. Did you note that the autox was won by a Corvette from the 70's? Not typically an autocross giant of a car. It didn't get there by accident. It was engineered.

Of course, if the "engineering" evaluation is just a "am I hot or not" popularity contest, then it's misnamed. Time will tell.

That's my point making a c3 an aotocross winner is kick ass engineering, regardless of who does it.

Again, I want to thank all of you for your insight and interest in the Ultimate Street Car Association. Many of you are comparing this new series to the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational - I understand as OPTIMA is our series sponsor. However, the OUSCI is the Super Bowl of "Ultimate" street cars and was designed specifically to showcase SEMA cars. I am one of the creators of the OUSCI and we created the event because we were sick and tired of all the talk at SEMA about the performance of the cars that we had just seen rolled into the hall from a trailer. The OUSCI is meant to showcase the combination of form and function, in only 50-60 of the best cars in the country, and prove that they can work together.

The USCA is similar in format only - we will use the same five segments as OUSCI; road rally, design & engineering, autocross, speed-stop and road course. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is open to all years, makes and models of street car, but the series is designed for more than just competition. Mega-builds will be the exception and it's not a requirement. The series objective is to get more people with real street cars out to events where they can enjoy their car safely, with a bunch of other like minded individuals, without feeling intimidated - to put them on some of the most iconic tracks in the country. The series will provide a platform for performance street car owners, vendors and manufacturers to showcase their products and prove that they truly work in a real world situation. USCA is there to help participants learn to enjoy their car safely - to drive their passion and enthusiasm to the next level where they might decide they want to compete in hardcore track events. It will also provide a competitive element for participants that are looking for something a little different and an opportunity to be recognized for their talent and accomplishments within the performance street car market. The TV element is only there to cover what we do and it WILL NOT drive the format, competition or the results.

icaneat50eggs- I hear you loud and clear - this is not a series about shiny bolt on wheels and undercarriage lighting. That's not engineering. But take a look at my AMX - I can drive it around Road America in about the same time as a stock Z06 Vette - and it doesn't have any shiny bolt-ons what-so-ever. I've put 20,000 street/track miles on the car in 2 years. I've run OLOA, SIlver State Classic Challenge twice, Sandhills Open Road Challenge twice and over 30 different track events during the same time. I'm currently on an extended 1000 plus mile road trip. Our thought is that all the time, effort and thought that goes into making these type of accomplishements possible should be rewarded. I can make a Corvette faster for a lot less money, but that's not the point - it's the reward of creating something unique that performs at a high level. Performance street cars need a venue where they can play and compete against other street cars on a somewhat level playing field.

We are trying to build something that is accessible to a whole bunch of enthusiasts that is affordable, safe and fun. I won't lie, it's hard, but we're passionate about it and we're going to work hard to put a well thought out series into the industry. It won't be the right fit for everybody, but I'd like to invite everyone with a street car to come out and try it at least once.

We are open to all ideas, so please keep them coming.

Keith, rollover protection in a convertible must be higher than the drivers helmet when strapped in the car and it may be removable.

Thanks!

icaneat50eggs wrote: Are there any good write ups on the previous competitors cars? I know it wasn't open to the public but I'd be interested

I don't know how good they are, but I've been doing previews of past OUSCI competitors for several years on our Power Source blog. The OUSCI has been open to the public for the past few years, but there is limited spectator capacity at Spring Mountain, so tickets can be tough to come by if they aren't purchased early.

Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged. As a result, we've been able to outfit entire fields of ChumpCars with someone else's "dead" warranty returns.

Jim McIlvaine eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc. www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

OptimaJim wrote: Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged.

Snarkiness within the first five posts on the site? Smooth.....

I like that guy and I like Optima's support of automotive silliness like this. Imagine if the companies who support NASCAR teams cut their racing budgets by half and put the extra money into supporting events like this and Chump. It would be glorious.

jimiday wrote: Again, I want to thank all of you for your insight and interest in the Ultimate Street Car Association. Many of you are comparing this new series to the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational - I understand as OPTIMA is our series sponsor. ... The USCA is similar in format only - we will use the same five segments as OUSCI; road rally, design & engineering, autocross, speed-stop and road course. ...

Thanks for the update, Jimi.

Why is the OUSCI "Finale" listed on the schedule for OUSCA events if they are supposed to be the same in format only?

It reads more like the OUSCA events replace the previous regional qualifiers you've done in the past for OUSCI. If that is not the case, as you say above, then you have a marketing disconnect. Might want to fix that so folks don't get the wrong idea. And if it is the case (i.e. they are qualifiers) well, umm, err, what you said before is, umm, err...

OptimaJim wrote:

icaneat50eggs wrote: Are there any good write ups on the previous competitors cars? I know it wasn't open to the public but I'd be interested

I don't know how good they are, but I've been doing previews of past OUSCI competitors for several years on our Power Source blog. The OUSCI has been open to the public for the past few years, but there is limited spectator capacity at Spring Mountain, so tickets can be tough to come by if they aren't purchased early. Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged. As a result, we've been able to outfit entire fields of ChumpCars with someone else's "dead" warranty returns. Jim McIlvaine eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc. www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

If you'd like to contact me directly about how to prevent the constant problems, my email is keith@flyinmiata.com. That might be more productive in the long run than your forum post.

However, the car I had originally been thinking of bringing to the USCA event is one of the few that is still running an Optima without a failure. I'll be checking out that Power Source blog to see what's been running at OUSCI.

Keith Tanner wrote: If you'd like to contact me directly about how to prevent the constant problems, my email is keith@flyinmiata.com. That might be more productive in the long run than your forum post.

...Good Guy Keith...

is this a GRM Meme yet?

Keith Tanner wrote: I think you'll find that "Ultimate" is a cost-no-object exercise for most people. Or "effort no object". Something like this would never be cheap or easy to win.

Several people suggested that I enter Midlana in this event, but even before looking into it, I already knew what I'd find:
1. Shop-build cars.
2. Budgets of >$100,000
3. Cars driven by people claiming to be owners/builders, but are neither, and are likely to be semi-pros.
4. Running anything less than 500 hp and 4WD will likely result in thinking "why did I bother."

Granted, with that sort of negative thinking, I've already "lost", but I've seen too many of these so-called "street legal" events to think it would be any different, but might be fun to watch, though.

Keith, I sent an e-mail this morning. kb58, we're trying to make these events accessible to everyone, so we're not going to turn away someone just because a shop built their car. We're also trying to help promote the automotive aftermarket and shop-built cars are a big part of that.

Mark Stielow also proved (twice) that you can win the OUSCI with a car you built in your own garage. Danny Popp happened to be a Corvette technician at McCluskey Chevrolet and I saw pictures of his winning Corvette torn apart on a lift at the dealership a few weeks prior to the event, so that is technically "a shop," although Danny did the wrenching. Steve Rupp's Camaro was a magazine project car, so he did some of the work himself and some of it was farmed out to various advertisers for magazine tech articles. Brian Hobaugh's Corvette has been in his family for more than 30 years and he is the shop manager at Car West Elite, which is a body shop in California.

That's five out of our six winners and I'm not sure any of them spent more than $100,000 to build their cars, although most could probably get more than that for them now. The other winner was Bruce Cambern, who is the last living original owner of a Shelby Cobra. He may have more than 100k into the car at this point, because he has been beating on it since the day he bought it, but he definitely owns the car and I'm glad at least one of those Cobra owners was still willing to take their car out on a track. He didn't drive it in the event the year it won and we changed the rule the following year, so that the driver had to be the builder of record or owner. Bruce still did pretty well that year, finishing third in his Ford GT.

Danny Popp and Mark Stielow are probably as close to being professional drivers as someone could get, as Mark is a program engineer for GM, while Danny has also worked as a driving instructor. Danny and Brian have also won a room full of SCCA trophies.

We have let drivers with professional racing backgrounds participate in an exhibition-only class and to be honest, they usually run middle-of-the-pack, although we don't publish the times of exhibition drivers. Some of that is probably due to the car they were driving, while some of it is due to the fact that other people in our events are pretty good drivers with pretty nice cars.

There are a lot of great events out there that have different classes based on weight, horsepower, dollars spent and any other number of rules. It's probably not politically correct of us to not make more people feel like winners and crown a bunch of champions in different classes, but we're just trying to keep it simple and identify "the ultimate street car" in a singular sense.

Do competitors end up calling attention to the fact that they were the top finisher that didn't have over 500 horsepower, all-wheel drive, anti-lock brakes or a huge bankroll? Probably and that's fine if they want to do that. For us, it's more about the experience of the event, which we really try to make special and unique. Whether someone finishes first or last in any or all segments of our event, we want them to be safe, have a great time and promote the industry in a positive way. It seems like just about everyone does.

When I do the post-event interviews, the advice these guys often give to future competitors is to just relax and enjoy the experience, because getting there was the hard part. That doesn't mean guys like Dale Akuszweski don't want to outrun high-dollar cars in a '64 Sunbeam Tiger that has far less than $100k, 500 horsepower or AWD in it, just that they should enjoy what they have accomplished, rather than worrying about what they haven't.

Jim McIlvaine eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

Autolex wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: If you'd like to contact me directly about how to prevent the constant problems, my email is keith@flyinmiata.com. That might be more productive in the long run than your forum post.

...Good Guy Keith... is this a GRM Meme yet?

4cylndrfury wrote:

Winning.

I want to see a car like the Golf from the other thread at this event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dElFiQcLsp8

jimiday wrote: We are open to all ideas, so please keep them coming. Thanks!

We talked about this a year or so ago Jim in a chat on one of the other forums when discussing the OUSCI and why I never went to any of the qualifying events.

Allow DOT R tires or slicks. Because it's silly to require "ultimate" street cars to run minimum 200 TW tires on a road track. If it's truly designed to find "Ultimate" street cars why limit them with minimum treadwear ratings? An "Ultimate" street car has probably been fine tuned with the tires they regularly use on track that can give them the best performance so why take those tires away?

Sure, I mention this because I want to play. I'm not willing to go out and buy a set of $1,000.00 or more tires that will take performance away from my car just to enter an event I don't have a chance of placing in but would still have a lot of fun participating in. Guys like me look at the events like the American Street Car Series and others with minimum treadwear rules and then just decide we're better off (on our limited budgets) going to a track day with NASA or one of the other groups.

One of the best bang for the buck car parts is tires. The best tire for the type of event is usually the cheapest way to go faster. Like others, I run DOT R tires on the street, road tracks and for LSR's then swap to drag tires for the strip but there's lots of folks who show up at a road track with their all season radial (high TW) street tires on very fast cars and swap their road race slicks on for the track day.

Allowing Ultimate cars to use Ultimate tires just makes sense to me AND might be safer than forcing people to use tires they're not accustomed to at race speeds.

What sort of tire regs would you accept? DOT? I don't know about you, but 200 treadwear tires are a lot cheaper than Hoosiers for my cars.

200 treadwear tires are required for street autocross classes. Since these are supposed to be ultimate street cars, it makes sense that they roll on street tires. DOT Hoosiers aren't street tires.

The tire regs make sense to me, even though I'm probably one of the people who would benefit most from being able to run an R comp due to my tire size constraints.

There also seems to be a good level of support from tire manufacturers for their 200TW tires. Think about it. For every guy who runs those tires on their "race car" there are 10 guys who never compete on them. These guys get 6-12K miles out of them and replace. How is that not a perfect thing for a tire manufacturer?

JoeyM wrote:

OptimaJim wrote: Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged.

Snarkiness within the first five posts on the site? Smooth.....

I don't see anything wrong with defending your product on a forum...regardless of post count. IMO of course.

Cotton wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

OptimaJim wrote: Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged.

Snarkiness within the first five posts on the site? Smooth.....

I don't see anything wrong with defending your product on a forum...regardless of post count. IMO of course.

Nor do I. There are, though, ways to do it without insulting the longtime members of the forum. FWIW, I won't be putting a yellow top in my datsun after this.

JoeyM wrote:

Cotton wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

OptimaJim wrote: Keith, the Chumps thank you for your near-100% failure rate batteries. Many of the "bad" warranty returns we receive are just discharge-only and work fine, when fully-recharged.

Snarkiness within the first five posts on the site? Smooth.....

I don't see anything wrong with defending your product on a forum...regardless of post count. IMO of course.

Nor do I. There are ways to do it without insulting the longtime members of the forum, though.

You and I obviously have different definitions of insult....what is the The Hamb? lol There is a lot of thin skin on that forum.

At first I was curious to the method Optima uses to recharge discharged batteries that are returned to them, but then I remembered this tech tip post, so I imagine it's similar. http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/tech-tips/reviving-an-old-battery/73611/page1/