OPTIMA’s Ultimate Street Car Series (OUSCS), presented by Advance Auto Parts, is all about showcasing highly-modified, but still street legal, cars in a high-performance environment. The 2024 Lingenfelter GTL Class champion is none other than Utah driver Lane Farka.

GTL cars must be under 3200 pounds and the typical competitor drives a C5 or C6 Corvette. There are a few Porsche Cayman GTs in the class and some vintage Datsuns with Chevy LS V-8 engines stuffed under the hood. 

Lane’s car—a 2015 Porsche 911 GT3 with a mostly-stock drivetrain—is pretty unique in that company. Where most GTL-class machines are pushing over 700 horsepower to the wheels, Lane’s car—“the Ghost”—dyno’s at a much-lower 400 horsepower. 

To keep up with the best in class, Lane’s sponsor, Air Power Racing, took a near-perfect street machine and modified it to compete. Those mod’s include Porsche Cup Car brakes and suspension, a carbon-fiber GT2 RS front end, and some serious aerodynamic enhancements. This 911 is a mixture of so many vehicles that Air Power techs are calling it a “strace” car. 

Five Facets of the Series 

The OUSCS started when the founders were watching the automotive beauty pageant known as the SEMA parade. They questioned whether some entries could even be driven on the street and the track. So they decided to create a challenge series to find out. The result: the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Association. 

Air Power Racing has a long history of setting up Porsches that win road races. However, the OPTIMA challenge presents a whole new set of…well, challenges. Cars are judged in five areas totaling 500 possible points. So cars and drivers have to be good at several things. Lane especially loves the multi-faceted nature of this competition. 

While most of the series is about performance, a Design & Engineering (D&E) tech inspection verifies that cars have real, working street car systems. That includes  lights, horns, wipers, HVAC, radios, etc. that are often stripped out when a car is track prepped.  

The judged portion of D&E is the show car facet of the series. Cars are scored on: body and exterior; engine and drivetrain mods including intake, exhaust, and cooling; tires and brakes; suspension and chassis; interior; audio and electronics; and yes, even how fancy the trunk is. The point: a great street car should be seriously attention-grabbing and functional. 

The Classic Car Liquidators Autocross challenge is a fairly standard autocross event. Drivers navigate a course laid out with cones as fast as they can. Scoring is based on the best time from both morning and afternoon sessions. 

The Peak Performance Challenge, aka Speedstop, tests rapid acceleration and braking. Typically, cars launch from a standing start and run 1/16 to 1/8 mile with a sweeping 180-degree turn. Cars finish by stopping, from speed, in a 40-foot box. Braking too early adds time, but hitting the cones at the back of the box disqualifies the driver from that challenge. Drivers have to really be in sync with their car’s capabilities on a given day to nail it. Scoring is based on the cumulative fastest times from morning and afternoon sessions. 

The Road Rally event tests whether competitors are really driving street cars, as in completely street legal. A typical challenge has drivers take public roads to an Advance Auto Parts store in a neighboring town on a Saturday evening. The goal is to get there and back without getting pulled over. To verify, drivers’ licenses are sealed in an envelope. If the seal on the envelope is broken—presumably to show the license to police—the driver is disqualified. 

Finally, the Falken Tire Road Course Time Trials challenge is a standard on-track time trial event. Drivers get a practice hot lap to qualify for starting (grid) positions. Then they try to run their fastest laps alongside competitors. Scoring is based on the cumulative fastest morning and afternoon laps. 

Lane’s Motorsports Background

Lane is an easygoing military veteran who has always been into motorsports, including dirt bikes, snowmobiles, and even rock crawling. He started competing in Utah SCCA Autocross in the fall of 2022 with an old Mario Andretti SCCA Camaro. That car was too loud, and he was told the Camaro ZL1 was really fast, so he returned with a 2018 ZL1 for 2023.  

His first time on a road course was at an OPTIMA event Lane attended in 2023 as a novice. He had a blast running the OUSCS and discovered a love for road racing. He competed in three more OPTIMA events in the ZL1 that year and broke into the top-10 finishers for road course and autocross at Thunderhill Laguna Seca and at Portland International Raceway. 

Lane was having some issues with the ZL1 on the road course so he picked up a bone-stock 2015 911 GT3 near the end of 2023. During the off-season he turned the car over to Air Power Racing, which had recently added Porsche street car work to their existing race clientele. They turned Lane’s 911 into something ridiculously capable. 

OPTIMA’s Ultimate Street Car Series, 2024

So for the 2024 OUSCS, Lane returned with a new car and a lot more experience, and it showed. He ran four events—at Thunderhill, Laguna Seca, Road America and Portland International—and came out on top in the Lingenfelter GTL Class in all four. 

Even with a significant horsepower deficit, compared to most competitors, by the end of the season Lane was earning more points than the normally-fastest GT class. Specifically, he took second place overall, among all classes, at Road America (Wisconsin) in June. Then, at the final OPTIMA challenge at Portland International Raceway, Lane not only swept the GTL class but took first place overall. 

Lane is quick to credit his sponsors for his success. Those include Air Power Racing, OPTIMA Batteries and Falken Tire. He loves the Falken Azenis RT 660s his car runs on. 

Lane also can’t say enough about Air Power Racing, which provides full track support and “crazy good” setup. Basically, they’ve made his Porsche street car function like a Porsche Cup car (dedicated racer). Lane especially credits Air Power tech Javier Molina—formerly of Graham Rahal’s Indy Car team—for his attention to detail when optimizing his GT3 for each track. 

While his sponsors deserve loads of credit, Lane is by himself behind the wheel once the challenges start. Winning his class and finishing the season with an overall first place says a lot about his car and his exceptional driving skill. Congratulations on an amazing season Lane!

Note: Doing well in the OUSCS qualifies car and driver for the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational (OUSCI) at SEMA. Lane was invited to SEMA and finished third, overall, in the OUSCI (with a new livery).

© 2024, R Bairett