Optima’s Search for the Ultimate Street Car, presented by Advance Auto Parts, lives up to its name every time it runs. This series is more than just great drivers, showstopping paintjobs, and 1,000-horsepower track freaks. It’s all of that and more wrapped up into a whirlwind weekend at some of the world’s best tracks. Stop number six in this series was iconic Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and the first event out of the gate was the Falken Tire Road Course Time Trial on the big track.
If you’ve never run at Road America before, know that it requires your complete respect and attention. There are elevation changes galore, technical turns, and three high-speed straightaways, each one with a progressively hairier braking zone. It will test every aspect of your car, and mechanical attrition surprises no one. If that wasn’t tough enough, competitors leave the big track and head straight for the Peak Performance Challenge, which involves a hard launch, hard brake into a hairpin turn, another hard launch, and a hard stop inside a 40-foot box.
By the end of the day, a dozen of the 70 entrants failed to make the Lucas Oil Road Rally, worth 100 of 500 available points on the weekend. Among the mechanical casualties was Chris Smith’s ’70 Camaro, which was poised to contend for the Classic Car Liquidators GTV Class championship. The series gives you seven chances to come up with your three best finishes to count toward your season-long point total. Smith put together a magical combination en route to a class championship in 2019, but only running three events leaves no margin for error.
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Esta historia es de la edición April 2022 de Hot Rod.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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What Is Pro Street?
You know it when you see it.
Pro Street in Pure Vision
Builder Steve Strope weighs in on the Pro Street look and what he would build today.
THE GAS ERA LIVES ON
These vintage race cars chart the evolution of technology in the early days of drag racing.
MOTOR HEAD FOR LIFE
Scott Sullivan is one of the original Pro Street pioneers. He still builds cars today out of a small shop in Dayton, Ohio.
BRINGING BACK PRO STREET!
David Freiburger and Roadkill Garage built a Pro Street Nova.
SWEET ASPIRATIONS
Jerry and Matthew Sweet added an 800ci Pro Stock mountain motor to chase HOT ROD Drag Week's Pro Street NA Record.
Making Bad Decisions Badder
Bradley Gray's 1970 Nova is a Hybrid! It's a streetable Funny Car.
ART PROJECT
This Rad Rides by Troy-built '63 split-window Corvette went from restaurant prop to ripping up the street!
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
THE PRO STREET ERA PEAKED IN THE '80S. ARE WE IN THE BEGINNING OF A RESURGENCE?
Making Connections
Project T-top Coupe: We install a Terminator X Max for big power.