The Ultimate Street Car Challenge is in its fifth year and it remains the most demanding and comprehensive automotive competition and evaluation in existence. Each year, the limits of what can be driven on the street are stretched well into the realms of the incredible. Like something of an automotive Olympics, records are shattered year by year, but by smaller and smaller margins, as the competitors reach the ragged edge of the physically possible.
Ever-advancing technology has allowed for higher boost pressures, fatter, stickier tires and stiffer suspension systems - all of which no longer come at the cost of increased harshness or decreased durability. Technology has allowed for each of this year's entrants to be more precisely managed and dialed-in than ever before. And with a deeper knowledge of the rules and regulations, teams have elaborate strategies in place to achieve victory during two days in the scorching California desert.
The USCC is more competitive than ever this time around and the entrants couldn't be more diverse. The all-wheel-drive guys are here in force, in the form of two STIs, an Evo, an R32 Skyline GT-R and a VW Beetle. Yes, you read that correctly. HPA has elected to campaign an all-wheel-drive Beetle RSI. We imagine everyone's hoping and praying not to lose to the ferocious little Vee-dub. We've got a Honda CRX from HASport in Arizona defending front-wheel-drive honor and we've also got an RX-7 with a Chevy V8 under the hood to keep the pushrod haters irritated. Attempting to show the RX-7 how front-engine, rear-wheel-drive is done comes a 350Z from XS Engineering that pops a squat on the fence separating 'street legal' from 'track use only'. Finally, we've got a couple of mid-engined contestants that are sure to give everyone a genuine scare: Prototype Racing's Elise with just shy of 300 wheel-hp, and a twin-turbo NSX from Autowave.
As in past Ultimate Street Car Challenges, it will take a well-sorted candidate to emerge victorious. No single victory can guarantee the overall win, and each category is as important as the next. In the past, we've had superstars utterly dominate areas such as lap times or acceleration, but bomb in a flurry of other tests, like fuel economy or emissions. The difference in this occasion is that our competitors are intimately aware of the need to present a good all-rounder, as opposed to a one-event door-slammer.
And this year we'll be replacing the 'Grandma' test with the 'Girlfriend' test, because we feel it's likely to be more relevant to our readers (when was the last time you took Grandma shopping, as opposed to taking your girlfriend out for dinner?). And we recognized that more than a few of you were just a little bit weirded-out by a middle-aged transvestite in old person's garb.
There can be only one champion and this year's USCC has all the makings of the most grueling contest to date. Sit back and immerse yourself in 30 pages of details, descriptions, photos and specs of some of the sickest cars in the nation, because next month the battle is on.
Think you have what it takes?