Five seconds. This is the margin by which James Chen's Ferrari 360 Modena spanked its nearest competitor on the road course. By road racing standards, that's a lifetime.
Chen's 360 Modena, in the careful hands of Rhys Millen, stuck to the tarmac with Hoosier's R3S03 racing rubber and turned an astounding 1:01.8 lap time, proving a healthy combination of power, grip and driving skill is nearly impossible to beat on a road course. And if you're going to win only three contests in the USCC, as did the Ferrari, winning the road course carries the most prestige.
The rules were simple: Each competitor would go out for two familiarization laps then stop at the timing station to be briefed and fitted with infrared timing gear. Four hot laps would then be timed and the fastest lap time would be scored. This process was no doubt simple for Millen, who has driven around The Streets of Willow course on several occasions. USCC rules allow car owners to use a hotshoe driver, but most chose to drive their own car. And several, including Geoff Bennett and his ridiculously overpowered Mustang, had never before driven on a road course.
With the Ferrari and Michael McIntyre's Hyundai Tiburon the only exceptions, competition on the road course was very tight. In second place was Mani Jayasinghe's Toyota Supra turning a 1:06.96, followed very closely by Mark Allen's supercharged Integra Type R at 1:06.99. In fact, competition on the road course was so close the lap times of second through sixth place are covered by only 1.07 seconds--impressive, considering the variety of vehicles and drivers competing. Slated in the fourth, fifth and sixth spots were Tod Kaneko's Datsun 510, Justin Sykes' Nissan Skyline GT-R and Mike Carwin's Toyota MR2 respectively.
In seventh through tenth positions, the times weren't as close. About 1.4 seconds behind the MR2 was Jason Kopocs' 300ZX followed only one-tenth back by Steve Mitchell driving a turbocharged Nissan Sentra SE. Back another half-second or so was Geoff Bennett's Mustang. Bringing up the back of the pack was
McIntyre's twin-engine Hyundai with a time of 1:19.05 seconds. McIntyre emphasized that the Tiburon's strengths weren't in road course duty and cruised around the course at moderate speeds.
| ROAD COURSE |
| RANK | CAR | TIME | POINTS | NOTES |
| 1 | Ferrari F360 | 1:01.81 | 100 | Rhys Millen + Ferrari = 100 pts. |
| 2 | Nissan Skyline GT-R | 1:06.96 | 92 | Fastest of the mortals |
| | Acura Type R | 1:06.99 | 92 | Who needs hp when you can drive |
| | Datsun 510 | 1:07.02 | 92 | It beat a Skyline |
| | Toyota Supra | 1:07.51 | 92 | It lost to a 510 |
| 3 | Toyota MR2 | 1:08.03 | 91 | Driving around a lot of problems |
| 4 | Nissan 300ZX | 1:09.40 | 89 | Mr. K's damp dream |
| | Nissan Sentra | 1:09.50 | 89 | Good driver/no lag |
| 5 | Ford Mustang | 1:09.98 | 88 | His first time on a road course |
| 6 | Hyundai Tiburon | 1:19.05 | 78 | Didn't even try |