Base Price - First Level

Ultimate Streetcar Challenge 2008"Bang for the buck"-a long-heralded battle cry for sport compact fans. This first competition can be a great equalizer in the USCC because it rewards those who start from humble beginnings and build their power, as opposed to those who buy big numbers straight off the showroom floor.

Opting for a commuter car platform, and its commuter car MSRP, paid dividends for Renner Motorsport and Bergenholtz Racing, whose formerly front-wheel-drive Impreza L and Mazda3 checked in at $15,595 and $18,685 respectively. Both teams scored more than 100 points in this segment of the USCC.

Eyeing the other side of the bell curve, we see the Nissan GT-R, which has a $71,900 price tag, bagging it a scant 10 points. With a whopping $38,910 span between the GT-R and the next most expensive contestant, Alison is no doubt expecting to make up points in the more performance-oriented categories. Still, the GT-R's relatively dismal performance here helped push the entire mid-pack further up and closer to the Impreza L and Mazda3.

Five of the nine competitors scored between 77 and 86 points. Riding the median average makes this contest a wash, so to speak, and these guys live to fight in another category, having neither lost nor gained ground on one another.

Savvy competitors know their car's strengths and tuners must gear their efforts in order to maximize the points in contests where they have an advantage, while also minimizing the losses where their car struggles. In this segment, picking a first year offering like Chiu's 350Z and Ashley's Evo VIII makes sense. Starting with a base model Z or an Evo VIII RS (if it were an '04 and newer model) would even add a few more points to the bottom line in this category.

For our USCC competition, the base price is the MSRP price of the car when it was sold brand new, which obviously also depends on the year and model of the car. The R32 Skyline GT-R uses a conversion factor based on its MSRP price in Japan when new. -Evan Griffey