Six Ways to Malfuntion at the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge
We’ve never figured out why, but for some odd reason humans are always transfixed at the tragedies of others. Its why car accidents cause so much traffic havoc – we all have to stop and look as we drive by (grrrrr)! Racing is no different. When something goes wrong on the racetrack we all wanna have a look.
So for your viewing pleasure, I thought I’d just highlight all malfunctions that went on during Optima’s Ultimate Street Car Invitational 2009. For starters, there was Hot Rod Magazine’s Factory Five built 1933 Ford Coupe, which I’ve already covered in: Hot Rod Magazine 33 Hot Rod Coupe goes down!.
Next there were some problems with Hot Rod Jim’s 1957 Chevy Pickup. It sounded like the tires were just a little too big for their own good. A problem that would’ve gone on with many-a-car on the SEMA showroom floor.
Then we had an exciting show when this 1965 GTO built by Barry White of Wrecks to Riches fame blew a radiator hose of all things. It might not have been so cool – but it happened just as the big heavy GTO was heaving itself around the autocrosses’ 360 circle and resulted in a mess of steam and fluid dumped onto the race course.
After that we had the mysterious control arm breakage on the 0-60-0 acceleration/braking course for this 1972 Charger. A suspicious occurrence for this event no doubt.
At the same event, and we can’t exactly call this a malfunction (the car was all right.) But for some reason it just couldn’t handle doing 0-60-0 in the allotted space this run, running it right off the course!
Last, but definitely not least, was the even more mysterious occurrence for K&N Filter sponsored Nissan Infinity G35. After a full day of racing, on it’s 2nd to last curve around the Road Course we see something fly and a cloud of dust. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was all 3 control arms snapping and the rear differential blowing out!
All this excitement in one day and nobody got hurt! For plenty o’ pictures of all 51 of the competing cars in the Ultimate Street Car Challenge, check out the MyRideisMe Event photos and for more on this exciting event click on over to some other stories!
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The PT-57’s front tires weren’t big enough it turns out. The “new” wheels high centered on the calipers. Cross that with the fact that we built the car in 21 days and it really wasn’t in top condition for racing. But their going to let us race next year so look out.
-Russell
Russell, let us know when you race again… The idea of a road racing Hot Rod is perfect! I wanna see how it does after working the bugs out.
I hope hotrod does a long term test with the 33,It would be interesting to do some drag tests,braking,mpg testing and other assorted tests.At 2200lbs incedible numbers shouldn’t be too far of,with the right parts.