This was one of the best events! Big Red...I could listen to that car all day long. Penny at WOT sounded NICE! The green roadster shop car can really move! This event was sooooooooo cool!

I will post my pictures later on this evening. My friend may have some crappy video...I will find out.

Congrats go out to team Lateral-G! Mary made the autocross look like a joke! Damn she can drive.

Who was driving the gt3 in the autocross? He was one hell of a driver.

Thanks to the Optima for the event

Again, I had a blast!!!!! :thumbsup:

Congratulations! Looks like you all had a great time. As a Camaro Performers subscriber I look for ward to seeing more. Its great to see you get your cars out and thrash on them, to show people that these arent just show cars, these cars can be driven and driven HARD! JESUS CHRIST Steve 151 mph? Thats freakin crazy! And to top it all off, its a 40 year old street car that was never intended to go that fast! As a second -gen owner Id like to se a feature on the DSE blue second gen as well as the beautiful black second. That car was at SEMA, and I thought it was just a show car, WOW was I wrong! Who owns this car? SWEET ride and bythe looks of things , he aint afraid to beat on it either. Looked like Mary was having a blast on the cones Judging by the smile on her face, looking forward to seeing more pics and features on this event and the cars! Great job!:bow: :thumbsup: :cheers:

I forgot about FueL...The work on fuel was great! One of the nicest black cars I have ever seen.

The airride camaro was sick. Bret beat the crap out of that car...he also broke the trans. The stance on that car is unreal. I loved it!

How did I forget about James car? I took more pictures of this car...beautiful is one word that comes to mind. James did one hell of a job on his car.

Congrats to all that participated. Special congrats to of course Steve, Dave and Mary, and all other members of LatG who prove these cars are built top be driven hard.

DSE
G-Force
ATS
Air Ride

Way to go!!!!!!

Congrats on the win Steve. :cool:

Seems like a pretty high attrition rate too, that's too bad.

Steve congrats on your weekend, I myself am just wondering what it would take for me to get involved with these type of events, sounds like a blast and maybe I have a car thats half way there.

Man that looked fun!!!!! I need to build me one of them bad boyz!!!

Fun facts I learned today...

David's best time was a 1:52.66

When the four timed laps were added to the three timed autocross laps we beat the 911 GT3 by 14 seconds!

Nobody timed the ZR1 but it went off track twice.

We hit 114 in one straight, but we were hitting over 90 in the sweeps.

I think the max g in a left hand turn was 1.2g and in a right hand turn it was 1g (damn corner weights).

The car has a LOT more in her. Next year the plan is to knock at least a couple of seconds off the time.

Will post data and numbers when I get them.

lol.. not 152mph.. 1:52.66 seconds was the best time.. :)

Kyle Tucker of DSE had the fastest auto-x time... great car and driver.

There's not much left on my car that's 40-years old.. well, except the driver. ;)

Mary cusses like a sailor when she's driving.. I don't think I can legally post the in car video... :rofl:

Just watched Penny go on the truck for her trip home.

Thanks for all the excitement Steve. Hope we can get a few more to cruise over the hill with us next year!

Pictures from the event

More pics

And more pics

For some reason your pics are REALLY tiny when clicked on...

If you want to host pictures try www.picsorban.com

yep...more

EDIT: I will resize them later on tonight.

Just watched this one, that was fun!

Thanks Tom

Hey Guys and Gals, I just got back to the office after getting everything wrapped up for SEMA and the Inaugural OPTIMA Batteries Ultimate Street Car Invitational. In spite of a couple of hiccups (like no 0-60-0 event), I couldn't believe how well the event went - it exceeded our expectations by a lot! I can't thank everybody that volunteered to help us enough - we couldn't have pulled it off without everyone's help. I tried really hard to keep track of everyone that volunteered and offer them my personal thanks, but I'm sure I missed somebody - more likely multiple somebodys - so for all those that assisted us, you have our sincere gratitude and appreciation.

The Ultimate Street Car Invitational was staged to prove to our enthusiast community that not only do these cars look good, but they can perform just as well. I have so much respect for every individual that accepted our invitation - it seems to me I was everywhere on the track all day long and able to experience the event from a race directors point of view, and let me tell you, there was not a single individual that babied their car in any of the events throughout the day. Each and every competitor pounded the snot out of these vehicles! You should all be proud of the 24 contenders that laid everything on the line last Saturday.

I and my partner Wally would personally like to thank every single person that came out to the event for your patience as we worked through some of the unforeseen challenges that cropped up throughout the day. We're already compiling a list of those things that worked well and those that didn't so we can improve the experience next year. If you have specific feedback or constructive criticism, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. We want to make this a premier annual event that will support and grow our common interests and help debunk the myth that our cars don't perform as good as they look. As well, we want to continue to focus on and support our sponsors that spend countless dollars every year to research and develop the products we all need to make these street cars what they are.

Finally, congratulations to all of our winners and to The OPTIMA Batteries Ultimate Street Car for 2008 - Steven Rupp and Bad Penny! You've built a bada$$ street car and Mary and Dave did a great job showing how well it works.

I will be sending out a blast email to all the participants and sponsors later this week with all the results - I know you are all looking forward to it! Thanks again for all of your help and support for the Inaugural OPTIMA Batteries Ultimate Street Car Invitational presented by HOT ROD Magazine!

Are all the results posted somewhere?

Not yet.. Jimi is going to email blast them out soon. I will post as soon as I get them.

I do know the following:

Info embargoed by Hot Rod.. sorry

I just emailed the final results to all the sponsors and participants - the pdf file is too large to upload on this post - I'm hoping someone here has the knowledge to get it on the board?

I merged the OPTIMA Batteries Invitational threads. :thumbsup:

Shelby Mustang
 

Does anyone any info on the red Shelby Mustang? Who built it, or most important details on the suspension. Thanks

That car was built by Precision Machine in Lodi. It has a Total Control Products front coil over conversion, a Total Control Torque arm in the rear, and Varishock double adjustable shocks all around.
Kevin (the builder) would have loved to make more laps, and was confident that he could have beaten the best time of the day, but he lost oil pressure and didn't want to hurt the motor. So, a one shot, one lap deal, but the car worked well.

Jimi

Did the transponders collect any other info? I know they can, speeds, G's, all kinds of stuff. It would be cool to have the speed info from around the track.

It would really help settle between Jason and I who had the top speed!! haha

Thanks again for pulling off the event so smooth!

Yea, I was talking with Chris Alston today about the car (since it's loaded with TC stuff). Sounds nice and I guess the guy does quite a bit of track work with it.

Hopefully it can come back next year with a fixed engine.

Sorry if this is a dumb question that has already been answered some where but He did say inaugural as in a new annual event to end SEMA week with right?

...unless he blows it up again. :P

He blew up the engine in it at Thunderhill 2 weeks before SEMA (big time-- broken block, busted block girdle and all) and it was a major thrash to throw that engine together for the Optima event and I know he dug up some old parts from the parts bins just to get the car down to Vegas. I think he started assembling that engine on Tuesday and had the car loaded in the trailer on Thursday.

I'm at his shop quite often doing EFI tuning for various projects and know him very well.

If his track-only Mustang had license plates he would have brought it... in which case things would have been very interesting, because that car is nasty.

Yes, they plan to make this a yearly event.. Penny has the first spot on the perpetual trophy.

Sorry so late on this but congrats on the win Steve. That is so cool WOW.
I wished I could have stayed to see it happen but had to fly back on Sat. Dammit. Next year for sure.

BTW how did you like the facility? A group of ten of us from my hometown are looking to attend their 3 day driving school in early march. They give a nice discount when groups sign up.

Congrats again to you, Mary and Dave :bow:

Sorry, we didn't have the transponders collecting any other data - unfortunately we missed some of the lap times for the competitors. Apparently the Spring Mountain transponders collect data about 95% of the time. We'll definitely look into collecting more data next year and potentially expanding the competition.

Not a dumb question! Yes, we will be returning to Spring Mountain Motorsports Park in November of 2009 for the 2nd annual OPTIMA Batteries Ultimate Street Car Invitational. Watch here for the announcement!

And as of right now one car has already gotten it's invitation to attend.. :unibrow:

To the victor go the spoils....lol :thumbsup:

I am coming for you Steve !!! Working on a plan now.
Now I wonder who will invite us?????

Cool:thumbsup: There is 8,237 Lat G members that now have the direct e-mail of the guy running the event (see post 257). I am sure if you build something worthy you can get directly in touch with Jimi. The event was great but I am sure when you looked at the 24 cars that you saw some that were seat fillers. I think there will be a much stiffer field next year. Sure logistics play a problem but there are some other worthy cars owned by members here and over a PT that would raise the fun factor.

Bring it!

Hell, I will make them invite you just so I have the fun of spanking a '69... again.


Oh look... the sh!t talking has started already!!! :rofl:


Just playing.. I'm sure we can get you into the event again.. I have connections and Fuel is a one badass ride.

Just remember.. you don't need to be faster than how Penny was... you need to be faster than how Penny will be.

:unibrow:

Steve,
How's it feel to have a bulls eye painted on your back? :willy:
David

Hey Steve,
I clicked on your name, opened your "public profile" you have what appears to be an out-of-date home page link there: http://www.z069.us/

It's now showing a bunch of links to gay porn!!!
Just thought you'd like to know... :rofl:
David

DOH!

:willy:

Yes he does David.
Honestly I am just screwing around with him , he a good guy ...just need to harass him some.

Congrats to you also , sweet driving you did last week .
You give lessons? Lets go rent the Vettes at Parump