The Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car doesn’t reward the fastest car in a straight line — it rewards the one that can do everything: road course, autocross, braking, and still look sharp under show judging. Heading into a new season, the defending champion was riding a run of consecutive titles that few competitors have matched. Here’s what the format demands, and why a shop technician keeps beating the field.
After a thrilling 2016 season that crowned Danny Popp the champion for the third consecutive year, registration for Optima’s Search for the Ultimate Street Car is open now at DriveOPTIMA.com. For the last several years, OSUSC events have invited classic and late-model muscle car enthusiasts from across the country to get behind the wheel and compete against other amateur racers at some of the nation’s most iconic tracks.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Full article:Â https://goo.gl/xiOe7V
A modern Corvette that can carve a road course, stop hard enough to rival a track car, and still roll into a show-car judging tent without a scratch — that’s the standard the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car was built to reward. Registration for a new season had just opened, and the defending champion was coming off his third consecutive title, a run few competitors in the event’s history have ever matched. For a series built around cars that have to do everything well rather than one thing spectacularly, that kind of consistency raises an obvious question: what does it actually take to out-drive the same field three years running?
The Technician Who Keeps Winning
Danny Popp’s day job is fixing the same kind of car he races: he’s an ASE-Certified Master Technician and a GM-Certified Corvette Repair Specialist, and he also works as chief driving instructor for a motorsports program on the side. His competition résumé backs up the résumé on his shop floor. In 2011, Popp became the first driver to win the event in a modern car, taking the title in a 2006 Corvette Z06, and he went on to add more championships in the years that followed — enough to put him among a very short list of multi-time winners in the event’s history.
What Makes a Street Car ‘Ultimate’
Search for the Ultimate Street Car events, and the invitational they feed into, are built around multi-discipline competition rather than a single test of speed. Cars that show up have to perform on a road course and in autocross, brake and accelerate competitively, and still hold up under close show-car judging back in the paddock — a format that rewards balance over brute horsepower. For classic and late-model muscle car owners used to bracket racing or car shows as separate pursuits, that combination is exactly the draw.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Related posts:
Muscle Car News: Classic Recreations Shelby Mustang gets EcoBoost power
Wow! 27 Hemi ‘Cuda & Challenger Convertibles In One Place!
Can you guess which of these 3 classic cars appreciated the most?
Which of these three music-inspiring cars appreciated most?
The 2017 Dodge Challenger GT Is the First AWD Muscle Car
Why the Ford Mustang is the Top Performance Car of 2016?
Jay Leno gets cozy with his 1966 Dodge Coronet
Barrett-Jackson’s 2017 Scottsdale Auction Will Feature an Extraordinary Docket of Rare Mopars
Rev up your engines with the American Muscle Car Challenge
What makes a Car, a Muscle Car?
