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In Optima's own words, the 2022 season will "have the biggest changes in the nine-year history of Optima's search for the ultimate street car." The DriveOptima series runs in conjunction with the SpeedTour series, which hosts Trans Am, the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA), the Vintage Race of Champions Pro-Am series, International GT, Formula 4 and Formula Regional Americas. For the racers, this means that there are changes in the format to the way time is spent on the road course. Novice drivers run on Fridays, with the other groups will battle it out over the next two days. Consistency over multiple sessions is the point for the racers, and the other aspects of Optima competition, like the autocross, the performance challenge, the engineering challenge, and the road rally, remain as they have always been.
Another new addition for the 2022 season is the new GTR Class, sponsored by Downforce Motorsports. GTR is for reproduction and replica cars that are officially licensed by the original manufacturer. This means that you can see a car like a Superformance-built machine take to the track, but the likelihood of seeing a Pontiac Mera in competition is not going to happen. They will run for their own class championship and class cup for the 2022 season, like the Speedtech Lucky 7 Outlaw racers do.
The first event of the OUSCI season was recently held at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Upcoming events include Sonoma Raceway in California (April 30-May 2, 2022), Road America (May 20-22, 2022) and Portland International Raceway (July 15-17, 2022).
David Schardt, owner of Forgeline Wheels, took second place in the GTV class on his first outing with their Camaro.
Chris Ingle managed the second-fastest road course time of the weekend in his 2014 Viper GTS.
Mike Gallagher, a former Ford Fest Grand Champion winner, managed to place second in GTS with his Focus RS against Corvettes and Nissan GT-Rs.
Holley EFI sponsors the GTL class, the fastest class of the OUSCI competition.
The OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car event wasn't the only racing going on. Trans Am and SVRA were wearing their rides out while the USCA crew wasn't on track.
Variety is the spice of life. Are there any other series that you'd see a C5 Vette racing alongside a C10 and an F100?
The GTR class was recently added to allow replica cars to race. The Downforce Motorsports crew brought out a couple of GT40 replicas to race.
