Optima After action report.. official results!
 

Well, they finally cleared up all the mess and I'm a happy camper!

I'm I happy we didn't win? nope.. nobody ever is, but I'm very happy with how we did.

Fourth place overall (third amongst my peers) out of 50 cars

Second best time in the 0-60-0 (damn Cobra!)

My fun run in the autocross (42.89) was the second fastest behind the Cobra. Even with no PS pump we placed third.

You had to go all the way to 11 place overall to find a higher style score.

I was the only car in the top four where the owner was driving part of the event.

In a week we will start tearing down the car in preparation for next season.. a few suspension tweaks are planed and maybe a 427 for some more low and midrange torque. After all, done cars arn't any fun. :)

Congrats to the the other members that came in near the top of the pile like Brian Finch (6th place) and Yancy Johns (8th place). Even our 2010 driven by Nick Licata managed a 10th place finish.

Also, lets' not forget Kyle Tucker who finished 5th on KDW street tires!

And of course.. HUGE congrats to our top three: Jim in the Cobra, Ryan in the DSE '69 and Mark in the Jackass!

Great event and to those that finished higher than me this year.. see ya in 2010!

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

http://www.optimainvitational.com/media/results.html

Good deal. Congrats to everyone!

Great event!

The "old" cars did pretty well :yes: :thumbsup:

Actually you did win Steve, for what 5 days. Imagine if Jimi had gone on a 21 day vacation, You might have won for 23 maybe 24 days.

A win is a win until someone says you did not win.

But if you did not really win does that mean you can still come back next year?

I'm sure he's a shoe in. Former champion provisional.

Optima is "known" for sudden and irrational "rules variations".... So no doubt Steve will be able to return for the 3rd time because of the "re-modified former and ex-former" rule.

I couldn't help but think that the rules of this challenge need some 'mods' - because it would be hard to get 50 cars (or even 40) each year - that are "new" and with owners willing to thrash them the way this group seems to be more than happy to do... And this "business" (SEMA) is all about IMPROVEMENT and new parts etc... so if you can only run once (unless you win) then there's not much incentive to try to get "better"...

So maybe we need a sudden and rational rules mod that allows the top "half" a return with half new cars... and the bottom half can run by invite only provided they can show substantial improvements in driver training and or car mods or both? (this improvement provisional is not meant to imply they suck but rather to put some incentive to work for a spot).


BTW -- if anyone cares - I will volunteer to work - arrive early and stay late for the 3rd annual.

Yea, past champions get to come back... bad news for the others I guess.. lol (wow, the smack talkin starts already) -- in reality there were quite a few cars from last year in the competition.

And I never considered it a win, even the day after. It just didn't feel right or make sense. But I am happy with how we placed in several of the events.

Jimi told me something sort of funny. When everyone was complaining about th results several people said that the four events should be evenly weighted at 25% an event. Well, if that would have been the case I would have won. Right now the event is weighted very heavily towards the road course.

For example, My score was 5:36 .. of that only 5.1 seconds was the "car show" part and only about 14.5 seconds was the 0-60-0. Nearly 3/4 of our score was the road course.

Anyways, they will be making quite a few changes for next year and I can't wait to go back,

BTW -- One of the reasons I thought this event was so dang much fun - was because I didn't view it so much as who was winning - but how much fun EVERYONE seemed to be having.... Personally I was rooting for every car I watched run - regardless.... because you could see the smiles on the drivers and owners faces.

Hell yea.. if they had this event every month I would go.. it was a blast!

You bet Steve....that would be a dream come true. You never know what the future may hold for us pro touring racers. Seems to be catching on.