Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car Comes to California

Wilwood supports all types of motorsports, and we encourage you to take your car out there and drive it hard! This weekend saw two big events happening featuring lots of Wilwood equipped vehicles, the Goodguys Nashville Nationals show and autocross (more on that in a separate post) and the Optima Ultimate Street Car event in Willow Springs, California. As is typical, many if not most of the fastest cars were using Wilwood brake components, or even entire systems.

Full official results have not been posted yet online, but there was no doubt about who won these three classes. And they were all using Wilwood brakes.

Grand Touring Truck (GTT) - Sean Kelly - 1967 Chevy C10

Sean Kelly's red C10 stepside pickup truck keeps getting better and faster. If you follow these types of street car events, you've seen this truck before. We have seen Sean at NMCA West autocross and other events. Power comes from an LS engine swap, set back into the firewall for better weight distribution, with TCI chassis components helping put it all to the ground.

You can find out more about this truck on it's TCI website profile.

Grand Touring Vintage - Dave Carroll - 1973 Chevy Vega

When new the Chevy Vega was not unpopular with autocrossers and SCCA compact racers. These days you are more likely to find them at the drag strip with a V8 under the hood, than you are to see one driven on the street. Dave Carroll went in a different direction, dropping a four cylinder turbo that GM engineers could only dream of in 1973 when this Vega was new.

You can read about this turbo EcoTec Vega on the Goodguys Fuel Curve, or catch it at another Goodguys autocross or OUSC event, where it eats muscle cars for lunch.

Grand Touring Light - Jake Rozelle 2003 Corvette Z06

It is hard to miss a bright purple Corvette, or the sound of a huge LS7 motor revving to more than 7500rpm, but Jake Rozelle's car is so quick, you just might. Not only did he win the GTL class at Willow Springs (for the second year in a row) but he took the overall prize too. So far this year the purple Vette has managed to win its class and overall in all three events, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and now Willow Springs.

Much of the credit for these wins goes to Jake's driving, and another serving goes to his engineering and car set up, but that Lingenfelter motor deserves some as well. Reports are it is putting down 800hp without a blower or turbo. Check it out on Jake Rozelle's Instagram.

Outlaw - John Lazorack 1988 Chrysler Conquest

The Optima Outlaw class is a bit of a catchall. You can wind up there because you are a professional driver, or because your car weighs less than 95% of its stock weight, or in the case of John Lazorack, because your wing is too big. This Chrysler Conquest (see Mitsubishi Starion, before being badge engineered) has been his ongoing project for more than 20 years, and has benefitted from every new skill he learned. Now an engineer for General Motors it has an Aluminum Corvette LS3 motor under the hood.

You can read more about it in this Optima profile from 2013, though it has only gotten faster since then.

The Next Optima Ultimate Street Car event is at Atlanta Motorsports Park, June 19-20. You can find the entire event schedule at DriveUSCA.com.

Enjoy this slideshow of some of the other cars we saw at Willow Springs last week.