Optima USCA Auto Club Speedway Weekend Gets Started at K&N Filters Factory Car Show

15 oct 2015

The Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car began its final OUSCI qualifier at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California with a car show at K&N headquarters to welcome drivers and fans

The Ultimate Street Car Association (USCA) is a sanctioning body formed to create safe, fun and high profile national automotive events for street legal performance vehicles. The USCA, in association with several key sponsors, came together to promote nine nationwide Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car events in 2015. All nine events serve as a qualifier for a highly coveted spot in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational event held each November in Las Vegas, Nevada following the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show.

In 2014, K&N Headquarters in Riverside, California played host as one of the stops along the Detroit Speed Road Rally and this in turn inspired the K&N Factory Car Show for 2015

Part of the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car challenge is the Detroit Speed Road Rally designed to test each car’s ability to function as a street legal performance vehicle. In 2014, K&N Headquarters in Riverside, California played host as one of the stops along the Detroit Speed Road Rally. Because the event was held on a Saturday night very few K&N employees, and almost no public audience, was able to witness the amount of time and ingenuity put into the cars competing in the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car series.

Despite the heat wave in Southern California, there were nearly 100 entries in the final USCA event, and many of those cars packed the K&N Filters Headquarters’ front parking lot

This fact inspired interested parties at K&N to become more involved in the USCA event for 2015. The majority of the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car competitors arrived a day or two before the USCA event in Fontana and they all love their cars. So why not host a car show at K&N Filters’ corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility in Riverside, California to welcome the competitors and share the experience with K&N employees? So began the first, hopefully, of many K&N Filters Factory Car shows designed to welcome Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car competitors to Southern California.

K&N rolled out the red carpet for those competing in the 2015 Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car event at Auto Club Speedway and shared the experience with K&N employees

It’s hard to complain about almost yearlong sunshine, however Southern California only experiences two seasons. Southern California, especially the areas inland from the coast, has a rainy season and a hot season with some mild periods in between. The week leading up to the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car event at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California began with rain; however the heat was once again nearing triple digits as the weekend approached. Despite the heat, there were nearly 100 entries in the final USCA event of the regular season, and many of those cars packed the K&N Headquarters’ front parking lot.

In addition to the car’s competing in the USCA event, many of the Optima Search for the Ultimate Street car series sponsors attended the car show at K&N. USCA sponsors in attendance at the K&N factory car show included: Optima Batteries, Falken Tire, Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, Wilwood Disc Brakes, and Detroit Speed & Engineering. Additional K&N partner companies, such as Clarion Audio, RideTech, Total Cost Involved, Go Rhino Products, 742 Marketing, and Hanro Studios were in attendance showing their support for the K&N factory car show. With so much support from within the performance aftermarket industry and from the K&N sponsored racers in attendance this event should be even better in 2016.