500hp minimum

Several pairs of high heels and Coke-bottle curves patter around looking sensational and, for all the surrounding visual cues, you could be forgiven for thinking The Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational is just another racing event. You’d be wrong, however – very wrong.

This is the sixth staging of the ‘Invitational’, and promoter Jimi Day stresses the importance of the term.

“There are many ways to get an invitation,” he says. “We have a 10-event qualifying series of which we choose one to four competitors from each event.

“Troy Trepanier is here because he won the Goodguys 2013 Street Machine of the Year with his ’69 Ford Torino. We also have our Golden Ticket winners from SEMA,” Day explains.

A Golden Ticket invitation for these guys is like Charlie stumbling upon a winning Wonka bar. These are basically wildcards awarded to vehicles on display at the SEMA [Specialty Equipment Market Association] Show with the real potential to amuse in one way or another.

The idea of inviting a bunch of high-profile, high-performance cars and their owners to a race track in the Nevada desert is very Tom Wolfe and The Right Stuff. The field is a mix of muscle classics, modern performance and a few notable imports – GTR, Evo and WRX STi.

Like many great ideas, this one started when Day and Cam Douglass (Optima Director, Product Development and Marketing) threw ideas at a serviette during a long lunch. Invitational rules read something like this: “The rules are intended to encourage a safe and fun competition. The organisers understand that everyone will not like our rules or play nicely with others, so we created rule #25.

“Rule #25: Race director and event management staff will have COMPLETE discretion to deny or remove from competition anyone in the event for any reason.”

The air still hangs cold this morning but there are a few warm words between drivers. After all, what’s motorsport without talking smack?

The drivers aren’t professionals – often a factor of talent, not choice. The cars are real road cars. Some are producing outputs north of a V8 Supercar supported by impressive on-board management technology and braking ability. It is a credible tribute to a national passion for cars and an aftermarket parts industry that remains on the leading edge of technology.

The event doesn’t end with a cheque in the post; there is a trophy handed to the overall winner that’s the right size to sit atop a Snap-On toolbox in the temple that is every man’s garage. They come for bragging rights.

The Invitational scores invitees in five categories: Road Rally, Design, Hot Lap, Autocross, and Speed Stop, for a possible total of 110 points. The kryptonite to these supercars is a set of 200 treadwear street tyres. It’s like hobbling ballerinas with cleats.

The 62 invitees this year are an eclectic mix, the common theme being that looks are a distant priority to power. They’re all driven too – maybe not daily, but often enough to show a few scars and cruise at commuter speeds without overheating. To prove it, the invitees drive a 40km Road Rally through Las Vegas on Friday at rush hour. And there’s no mercy when the local constabulary doesn’t like what it sees…

Chevrolet Camaros, both classic and current, are numerous and joined by a pair of mid-’60s Corvettes, creating primal fear in the other competitors. Brian Hobaugh’s red ’65 ’Vette has been in the family garage for more than 30 years, morphing gradually from stock to something clearly more exciting.

Brian drove a ’73 Camaro last year and finished second. With the red ’Vette, a car he knows as well as his own skin, he’s an early favourite. The ’Vette’s specifications are fairly basic but well sorted. A Gen I Chevy small-block with 364 cubes develops around 370kW (500hp) and the car weighs about 1440kg.

It accelerates, turns and stops so quickly it stretches more than a few laws of physics. Hobaugh’s time in the Autocross is unbeatable, even by the Mitsubishi Evo VIII and two Nissan R35 GTRs. He’s also quickest in the Speed Stop.

“You don’t need more than 500hp for these street tyres for the Autocross,” he says, and his strategy plays out with a reasonably quick Hot Lap to put himself at the pointy end of the field.

John Kundrat is driving another early-generation Corvette that blends a C5 Corvette front with a C4 Corvette rear and tube chassis under a C2 ’64 bodyshell. Despite showing a lot of road miles, the Corvette suffers from a problem and John decides to pull out after the Autocross.

Last year’s Invitational winner is the only car allowed to return. Mark Stielow’s gorgeous ’67 Camaro, modified with a mix of aftermarket and Chevy Performance parts, is intimidating. The exterior is definitely 1967 while big Wilwood calipers, rotors, and dampers are definitely this century.

“There are about 10 cars that can win this,” he says, with the confidence of a defending champion. The Camaro carries a supercharged 427ci late-model alloy LS V8 peaking at around 670kW, and Stielow is above average behind the wheel.

Stielow has worked for GM since 1989 as a chassis engineer based at the Milford Proving Ground in Michigan, where he’s now responsible for the new Z/28 program.

Dax Snow (a former AMA Superbike racer) in a white 2009 Gallardo knows there’s a big target on his backside. The all-wheel-drive V10 Gallardo sets the baseline for supercar performance, and the Lambo is handling more like the Titanic as it goes down one by one against Stielow and Hobaugh.

“They invited me here to make fun of me,” he figures, but he’s having fun playing the part of the sacrificial virgin.

A Golden Ticket went to Boris Tilim and his tweaked Fiat 500 Abarth, which pushes 160kW from a tiny 1.4-litre engine assisted by a bit more boost from a slightly larger turbo. It’s great power for an Abarth but, compared with the other furniture in the paddock, the output is about equal to a starter motor.

“We did take the luggage out of the trunk,” he says, shrugging.

Tilim owns 500 Madness, a Fiat tuning and aftermarket shop in Southern California.

Nearby sits a red 2013 Viper with the bonnet up and a few confused guys looking like they had lost something important – like reliability. The V10 is not willing today.

The owner, Mark Capener, built the Viper to chase a record of 230mph (370km/h) he set in 2012 driving a Lamborghini Gallardo at the Mojave Mile. He quotes 820kW at the wheels from the twin-turbo 528ci stoked V10 but today it won’t roll out of sight unless pushed.

The Trepanier-built ’69 Torino Talladega and the Dave Eckert-built ’69 Mustang Mach 40 are works of art, both representing the Blue Oval with pride. These are beach-front-property cars but the value doesn’t faze Eckert, nor dampen the competitive spirit with which he tackles this event.

The Mustang Mach 40 uses the layout and supercharged 5.4-litre V8 from a 2006 Ford GT with an exterior design that lends itself to a ’69 Mustang. “I built it so I can rebuild it,” he says, but fortunately it finishes the day intact.

The Torino Talladega sounds so sweet at full throttle down the back straight. The 530-cube Boss V8 makes about 485kW and pushes the aero-tuned Talladega to 175km/h with ease.

Trepanier found a prototype era-correct Hilborn injection for the Boss engine then converted it to EFI. The Torino’s rear spoiler and final exterior design was aero tweaked through lessons learned inside Chrysler’s wind tunnel testing of the Blowfish – a ’69 Plymouth Barracuda that ran a speed record of 307mph (494km/h) at Bonneville. Built for millionaire hotrodder George Poteet, the aluminium bonnet and one-off Holman Moody gauges finish off the Torino to perfection.

The wildcard, the spoiler and Golden Ticket invitee takes the villainous form of a bright yellow 2012 Nissan GTR.

“They told me I was invited at 3pm yesterday,” says Ricky Kwan, who borrowed a helmet and then went out and set down a blisteringly quick Hot Lap that is daylight quicker than anything else. What the hell? When Day and Douglass conceived the Golden Ticket idea, this is the result they wanted.

A self-described track addict, Kwan can flat-out drive, and the GTR has a few secrets that raised the turbo V6’s output at a recent dyno tuning session to 395kW. Kwan’s times in the other track events are on pace but he failed to drive the Road Rally through Vegas and cannot win overall. It doesn’t matter – Kwan and the GTR make their point.

No, at the 2013 Optima Performance Car Invitational it’s Hobaugh and his red ’65 Corvette who claim the overall win, with a classic showing of handling, poise and performance befitting the winner’s circle for this unique event.

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