Speed, steering and stopping. Sounds easy, right? That’s the basic rundown of racing…you get up to speed as fast as possible, corner without balling the car up, and stop before you test out some of Newton’s more concrete theories involving mass and motion. Ok, maybe that’s too simplified. The 3S Challenge is a combination of a drag race and an autocross: using an arm-drop start, two cars will launch down the center of a mirrored course. At the end, they will make a 180 degree turn, then navigate a quick slalom before drilling the brakes to avoid running through the stop box and earning a couple extra seconds on your time. Hitting cones also counts against the run, and for LS Fest, the 3S Challenge was part of the Grand Champion series of events. What did this mean? Easy: on the early Sunday morning runs, drivers were feeling out their cars and the course, making sure that they knew where the limits were for grip and brakes. By the afternoon, any semblance of “gentle” was thrown out of the window…locked brakes, sideways antics in the 180-degree turn and stop boxes that were just plain mowed through were the norm as drivers pushed for the absolute last ounce of what their cars could provide.

Click on a photo below to check out the action from the 3S Challenge at LS Fest!