2004 Ultimate Street Car Challenge

They call it the Streets of Willow for a reason. It's for street cars. The USCC Road Course competition returned to this 1.5-mile road course for the first time in three years for exactly that reason-racing street cars on a street course. The Streets' 120-foot elevation gain makes it a real test for any car. Combine that with a 1,000-foot straight, off-camber corners and every competitor's need to win the most prestigious test in the USCC, and this is one hotly contested race. Let the chest pounding commence.

And there was plenty of chest pounding. Even though, at this point, the contest was all but over. With only 125 points remaining between the Road Course and the Gross Display of Horsepower, there was little those who were behind could do but sit back and wait for the inevitable. Some, though, didn't see it that way. Those few were the guys who entered the contest for the road course. They didn't come here to see how well their car did on the emissions test or how happy it made Grandma Pauley. They came here to swing their metal around in mad fits of lateral acceleration.

It's no surprise then that Brad Bedell didn't drive the tires off his MR2 on the road course. Knowing he had the lead by almost 200 points he cruised around the track in air-conditioned comfort on his first session. The second outing was equally leisurely. Final time? A tie for ninth at 78.42 seconds.

Bill Knose, try as he might, wheeled his mighty STi-powered Impreza around the track in exactly the same time as Bedell's MR2. Perhaps it was the Impreza's relatively tame road manners and street-tuned P1 suspension, or maybe Bill wasn't really trying, we'll never know. Either way, it takes a group of cars this capable to make a machine as bad-ass as this Impreza look slow.

Marcel Horn in the HPA-enhanced R32 found himself in eighth place when the dust settled. To his credit, Horn didn't get as many chances at a clean track as some of the other competitors, thanks to a serious end-of-the-day time crunch. Even so, the VW probably is not as well suited to the road course as some of the more focused cars in the group. Horn ended with a 77.65-second run.

In the day's most spectacular demonstration of car control, Steve "Genghis" Khan drove Jason Cameron's '94 RX-7 to a seventh-place finish on the road course. Overcooking the Turn Eight bend slightly, Khan slid the Seven halfway to Turn Nine before reeling it in and keeping all four tires on the road. Determined to have the first rotary-powered car to finish the USCC with all its apex seals intact, the crew from Texas turned the FD's boost way down before the road course. They survived and ran a 75.66 to prove it.

Everyone was nervous when Nick Wong's Skyline rolled onto the track. Until its untimely expiration it was easily the car to beat on the road course at last year's USCC. The crowd was surprised when the Skyline could only manage a 75.38-second run. Driver Steve Mitchell wasn't thrilled with the car's tuning as he went out for his second session. "This isn't the same car I drove last year," he mumbled before the final few laps of the day.

It's a rare day in road racing when a Miata beats up on a Skyline. The USCC has lots of rare days. That's exactly what happened when Moti Almagor took the wheel of Andrew Campbell's boosted MX-5. Almagor used massive restraint in harnessing the Miata's 400-plus hp as he steered and stomped his way to a run .30-seconds quicker than the big Nissan. A smaller turbo and more usable power delivery would have made his job easier. Still, bringing a Miata home fifth in this field requires a serious combination of car and driver.

As last year, John Mueller was put behind the wheel of Scot Gray's daily-driven 1994 Eclipse to do what he does best-eke every last millisecond from the potent DSM. It paid off with a fourth fastest overall time in a decade old car.

Slowly but surely the big dogs worked their way to the line. With everyone thinking the win would come down to a serious battle between the two EVOs, it was refreshing to find Matt Andrews' Supra duking it out with the all-wheel-drive crowd. The Sparco EVO, driven by Emile Bouret, suffered a cracked intake manifold that kept it out of the hunt for the lead. In fact, its third overall performance is a testament to Bouret's talent and the car's spectacular chassis.

Andrews' Supra was also in the hunt with Erik Messley behind the wheel. When the glory laps were done, however, Messley turned in a 73.39-second lap time good for second place.

For the second year in a row, John Mueller found himself king of the USCC Road Course in a car that brought together the least likely group of sponsors from Road/Race Engineering and Buschur Racing. Mueller bested second place by almost 1.6 seconds with a 71.80 lap. EVO wins. - Josh Jacquot

Test 14 Road Course