The Ultimate Street Car Challenge 3: Gross Display of Horsepower

There are no rules in the Gross Display of Horsepower. However, there is a list of ingredients which regularly combine to produce a winner in the USCC's most visually spectacular contest. In no particular order they are: horsepower, boiling rubber and smoke.

Like figure skating, drifting and monster truck freestyle contests, the Gross Display of Horsepower is judged subjectively by a panel of SCC staffers schooled in the ways of the burnout. And, like the latter two, bigger is always better.

This year's Gross Display lacked the four-wheel-drive tug-o'-war of USCC 1 and the Rockford-style ballerina antics of Mani Jayasinghe's Supra from USCC 2. This year was simpler--just as spectacular--but much, much simpler. A back to basics of burnouts, if you will.

Let's start with the not-so-good. A DSM will never win this contest. Especially a DSM with Hoosiers. Both Eclipses in USCC 3 were, at this point in the contest, spent. Scot Gray's first-generation car was running without boost and Roy Narvaez's silver second-gen. had numerous maladies, including a blown head gasket and a massive oil leak, which is to say they were both less than spectacular in displaying anything grossly. The judges were unimpressed, doling out less than 10 points each.

Both the 1994 Supra of Rich Eager and the 2000 Audi S4 from AWE Tuning put in mid-pack performances. The S4 demonstrated creativity with several four-wheel-drive burnouts and powerslides, but tradition says rear drive is the only way to win this contest.

Matt Andrews and James Chen both called on last year's Gross Display winner Mani Jayasinghe to do their dirty work in the Gross Display, and it paid off. Jayasinghe brought Andrew's car home in fourth with some classic controlled sideways drifts, then jumped into Chen's Z and brilliantly destroyed its rear rubber. The Z's performance was good enough for second place.

In third was the immensely overpowered Ultima driven by its owner, wildman Jay Esterer. Esterer kept the meats spinning for the entire 70-second time limit. Still missing its rear bodywork, the Ultima looked like a '50s-era dragster aimlessly and endlessly spinning its tires.

And then there was the Viper. The 842-hp Viper. With the power to spin its Hoosiers in virtually any gear, at any speed, there really was no competition when it came to a contest based exclusively in this discipline. So Paolo Castellano made it look easy. At one point, the Viper produced enough smoke to completely obscure itself from the judges--always a good sign. And, in 70 seconds, it delaminated the left rear tire. Castellano limped it back to the crowd one thump at time and was declared the winner. --Josh Jacquot

Car Show Test	The Guru Panel Test	Dyno Test
Emissions Test	Grandma Test	Driveability Test
Fuel Economy Test	Skidpad Test	Road Course Test
Acceleration Test	Braking Test	Gross Display of Horsepower Test
	The Winner