IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

Ok I'll do a short version for those who just want the quick run down, and down below I'll do a longer detailed recap


Short version: I competed in the USCA (Ultimate Street Car Association) event last weekend at NJMP (New Jersey Motorsports Park). It is an event that has been going on nationwide for years now and this is the first time it has come anywhere even close to NJ. There are 10 events in 2016 and the winners from each event get to compete against the winners of the other events in the Finals which is in Las Vegas in the fall. All 10 (plus the finals) will be televised with a 1 hour showing of each event on MAVtv late summertime. There is also usually a ton of internet coverage too, as this event brings out some of the best pro-touring, g-machine, street beast cars in the nation. I signed up as a novice since I have never done road-course racing or autocross. The car was put in the GTV class out of the 4 classes. I drove the car to the event in Millville (3 hrs south) with all the gear I assumed I would need loaded inside the car. I did not have a trailer so I packed my tent, jack, jack stands, tons of hand tools, sleeping bag, clothes, food, etc all in the car. When I got there I was blown away that I was even able to be involved with cars of this caliber. Saturday we ran the autocross course all day and also had the design and engineering judging panel. It rained HARD from noon on... despite that we had to do a "canonball run" type road rally where we had to leave the racetrack property and drive to a destination we only found out about minutes earlier. We were told to drive all the way to Wildwood NJ beach and had to get a photo in front of the WILDWOOD sign and be back in a specific time; despite POURING rain, with most of the cars in the group on race tires with slammed out performance suspension setups. I think almost everyone made it, some didn't and got a DNQ. Sunday morning after the driver's meeting we ran some practice laps on the actual racecourse (the Lightning track). A pro driver track instructor came along with me and taught me a billion things in those three laps which totally helped me out. Ran a bunch of laps in 3 out of the 5 hot-lap race sessions for my specific Novice class. Had a pesky electrical gremlin preventing me from laying down my best lap times, but had a freakin blast. In between these hot lap sessions we had another event to compete in: the speed-stop. basically launch, navigate a coned off course and come to a complete stop in the stop-box, for time. I did well and could have gone harder at it too, but just the same as Saturday... rain come down and kinda hindered me running the car ***** out. I called it quits, packed up all my gear, my soaking wet tent and tools in the back of the camaro. They had the awards ceremony and definitely some super pro drivers with badass cars won their class awards. Then I drove the 3 hours home, a smile on my face 10 miles wide... despite half the trip being in traffic an the rain. Parked the car, kissed the wife, had a snack, and unloaded all the (wet) gear from the car. BY FAR.. THIS WAS THE GREATEST CAR EVENT/EXPREIENCE I HAVE EVER BEEN A PART OF.. possibly even my greatest life experience of all time.

((The L-O-N-G version will be below all of these links)))

IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

- Link to my photo album of photos I took during the event:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/123927...57668883451356

- Link to the Super Chevy Magazine event coverage:
http://www.superchevy.com/events/160...orsports-park/


- Link for NJ event writeup on Lateral-G website. (bad-*** website to browse too)
http://lateral-g.net/optima-ultimate...w-jersey-2016/


- VERY good writeup about this NJ event (below the photo you have to click the text "read more" to get the full article writeup
http://mylifeatspeed.com/category/op...te-street-car/

- Typical USCA weekend scheulde:
http://driveusca.com/wp-content/uplo...t-schedule.pdf

- Link to all 1 hour episodes that were on TV in 2015
https://lucasoilracing.tv/shows/optima/

-Link to the BADASS blue chevelle that was in my class awesome build. phenominal:
http://www.greatcarnews.com/one-car-garage-wonder/

- Web photo of my car:
http://image.superchevy.com/f/104536...gen-camaro.jpg
and
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...07&oe=57D61203
and
http://lateral-g.net/optima-ultimate...carousel-23717



As I said above, there will be a 1 hour TV special on MAVtv in a few months; it is a pay-extra tv channel for most cable providers.. however just a few months after it is on live TV, it will be posted up for ANYONE to view for free on that lucasoilracing.tv link I posted above. That is free, but prob not uploaded until mid fall. Also, these events usually get 2-3 pages of actual paper-print magazine coverage, so it should be in an upcoming issue of Super Chevy Mag and/or Popular Hot Rodding Mag.

IROCZman15

iTrader: (25)

Ok, now for the LONG VERSION.. if anyone cares!

So initially when I had found out that the Optima USCA event was coming to NJ for the first time in the event's short history, I knew I had to go.. and planned on just spectating. After a while, I figured this would be a whole lot funner to compete in it. I got registered months beforehand and spent a lot of time getting the car ready for the 2016 car show season as well as bolting up a whole bunch of speed parts like I do every winter. Before you know it, the event weekend was here.

Since I am low budget and do not have a enclosed trailer, I had decided to drive the car to the event (3hrs south to the bottom of south-western NJ). I had loaded up all sorts of tools, floor jack, jack stands, tent, sleeping bag, clothes, some food, more gear, a full tank of Nitrous-oxide, a spare wheel, etc. Made the drive to the track without a problem. When I pulled in around 3:30pm on Friday, it hit me; how awesome this was going to be. (I had just been down to NJMP the previous weekend for the 24 hours of LeMons event, but this was going to be very different). I unloaded the gear from the car, setup my tent, sorted out my gear and then brought the car over to the tech area where it passed. I was given the required event sponsor decals, so I spent about an hour putting them on the car, and talking to a a bunch of the other drivers who had arrived Friday. I took photos too, see the link to the flickr album. Also.. this weekend (Fri and Saturday) we shared the track/paddock with some NASA racers and with teams from the Champ Tuck world series. NASA cars are purpose built racecars, and champ trucks are big 12,000 pound diesel rigs converted to race. It is a blast to watch these huge machines tearing up the track!

Woke up Saturday morning for the driver's meeting where Jimi Day went over the weekend's schedule and the rules. My car was classed in the GTV class which is for any car 1989 and older which weigh in at 3,200 pounds or more. The other classes are GT, GTS, and GTL. GT is for any 3200 pound or heavier car 1989-present. GTS is for any car with 2 seats (corvettes, vipers, porche, etc). GTL is for any car lighter than 3,200 pounds. I weighed my car while I was there to find out that it weighs in at 3,467 pounds without me in it. So, despite my being a brand new novice driver, the way the points work, is simply by where you place against the cars in your Class,,, and not your driving level.

Saturday was the autocross in the infield, since the champ-truck and NASA cars were running heats on the actual track all day. We were lined up in the staging grid by class and one by one we rolled out, staged, and hit the course. Since the infield paddock at NJMP lightning course is somewhat small, the course was quick, tight, and we had to do two laps on it instead of the normal 1 lap. Having never autocrossed before, I had walked the course with some of the other experienced drivers and they explained a lot about turn-in cones, shifting the weight of the car before a turn, braking points, and driving lines. Learned a ton. After running the first pass and concentrating on not getting lost or missing a turn, I ran 2 more passes and was definitely getting better and was planning on really starting to lean on the car upcoming for the next few. However, it started to rain.. and by rain... I mean it was freakin raining and was not about to stop for hours. All of the cars continued to run in the rain, as did I... and I started getting much more comfortable with throwing the cars weight around in a controlled manner. In the videos the car seems slow, but I was focusing on hitting all the turn-in points etc, rather than just blasting the hell out of the course all out of control. At one point after lunch, Bill, the driver of the black 1979 camaro(with the 1970 front grill on it) took me for a ride in his car. I can't tell you how much I learned from that, and what he showed me. As a matter of fact, right after he took me out, I did another pass in my car and cut down my wet pass time by almost 2 full seconds. as it turns out, Bill and the black camaro took 1st place in the GTV class autocross... that car worked real well. good experienced driver too. Lots of the other super high horsepower cars had some difficulty trying to get the power down with the rain, standing water, and tricky conditions..so it was a real thrill to watch.

Also Saturday all the cars had to be brought through the "Design and Engineering" Judges panel, where a trio of judges look over your car and evaluate it for modifications, parts choices, aesthetics, streetability etc. They take 10 minutes per car and each driver is given a maximum of two minutes to tell them anything/everything important about the car to help the judges opinions.

At around 4:00 they shut the autocross down and there was another drivers meeting. At this point we learned the destination of our "mystery road rally", which is basically a cannon-ball run type part of the event. We learned that we would have to drive about 40 miles or so over to the beach at Wildwood NJ and have our photo taken to prove that the car made it, within a certain amount of time. Cars left at 5pm and we were not allowed to use any trailers, support teams, etc or else we would get a DNF for this portion of the event. The ride took a little over an hour, down wet streets, potholes, etc but I made it. Stopped for dinner with a few of the guys and was convinced to forgo the night in the tent because of extreme rain. Split a cheap hotel room with Buddy, (owner of the green/teal 4th gen camaro).

Got to the track early on Sunday and had another drivers meeting. We were informed that there would be three separate run groups on the track today, all at separate times. I was in the Novice class, which there is a NO PASSING rule. The intermediate and expert classes could pass eachother on the course. Each group was told to go out on the track for a few familiarization laps to learn the turns and layout, and I was lucky enough to have one of the pro drivers come with me. I forget his name but he taught me a ton about braking points, turn-in cones, apex markers, and how to use the whole width of the track. I was still freaking out being nervous, but when it came time to make a few laps under "hot track" green flag start, I spent the first half of the first heat making sure I wasn't going ***** out full throttle and was paying attention to the turns and distances. What a rush! Each run group got 5 20 minute sessions on the track. I did session 1, 2, and 4. Session 2 I got on it a little more, but had an issue with the knock sensor falsely triggering the SES light when I would get into 4th gear and downshift to 3rd gear. This causes the computer to pull 20deg ignition timing and go into limp-mode.. which is not what you want when you are hot lap racing on a track. I was able to reset it by pulling into pit lane, turning the car off and back on and getting back out there. This false engine light caused me to drive differently and some laps I would just keep the trans in D (4th gear) and slug around the track. other laps I tried leaving it out of 4th and I ran out of rpms in 3rd gear. Regardless I had a blast each and every second of every lap. If I only had a few hundred more horsepower and a non auto-transmission I would be ecstatic.

I opted out of Session 3 on the track in order to do a few laps in the other event of the day: the speed-stop competition. Basically a marked off course where you launch from the start box, navigate the course and have to come to a complete stop in the stop box..for time. I made a few decent dry runs and on my last dry run I used a 2 second blast of the nitrous, which helped cut about .4 seconds off my dry time. I was really hoping to get into the 11's and I am sure I definitely could have; had it not started to rain again. I switched back to the race track and ran session #4 where there was some rain coming down, but not enough to slop up the whole track though. A mustang spun off and hit the tire wall towards the end of the 20 minute session and then the heat was black-flagged. It was raining more, and I did some more speed-stop passes, actually a bunch just one after the other. Some I didn't even record a time on, just went out there to flog on the car harder and push it more and more.

Since it was apparent the rain was not going to let up, I skipped session 5 and took down my tent, loaded up all the wet gear into bags and loaded stuff into the camaro. around 4:30 we had the awards ceremony, where the first place finisher in each class (GT, GTV, GTL, GTS) is awarded the honor of being invited to the 2016 championship event in Las Vegas. As I said, Bill with the black camaro won the GTV class, and the other class winners were definitely some great drivers with great cars. I hit the road and drove the 3 hours home, despite some areas of heavy traffic and rain even more. Parked the car, unloaded as much as i could; leaving the rest for tomorrow.

I could go on and on and on about how much fun I had and how much I learned and the cool people I met. What a phenomenal experience. I met OptimaJim and spoke with him a bit. Very nice guy. There were some seriously well built cars there, almost all running race tires with roll cages, big horsepower engines and power adders, and hardcore suspension/chassis work to the max. Really cool stuff. Enjoy the photos and links above. Check for coverage on MAV tv in a few months time too.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Looks like you had a fantastic time! I'm sure the rain wasn't optimal for pushing the cars, but probably made it a little fun for hanging the tires out. The people involved are probably the best thing about the events. Its like I have a whole new group of buddies since competing.

The pictures look really nice, and its great when Big Jim randomly posts a new one you haven't seen yet or something.

Dude why was "Captain Jack" Daveys blue/red Peterbilt 359 down there? I know the were running a semi trucks that same weekend? ... anyway! Sweet pics. Glad you had a great time.

If you get a wild hair borrow the car trailer/truck and drag it out to the Pikes Peak event. There is already 5 Third gen Camaros on the roster... Kinda like a thirdgen shoot out

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

Good for you! Looks like a blast. Nice to see some third gen representation there.

jclopezz

it really looks like you had the time of your life there. Good for you...

Beater79TA

Glad you had fun and completed it safely.

We went to a couple last year. Probably won't go back again. Too many totaled cars and scores that can't be explained when you look at results across events.