With no doubt, if you are a gearhead in Las Vegas, the SEMA week has been your primary focus and the Las Vegas Convention Center has been your home away from home, but once SEMA Ignited is finished on Friday night…that’s it. SEMA is in the books until next year. But that doesn’t mean that the automotive fun in Sin City is…in fact, it’s only beginning for the drivers who are in the running for the Optima Ultimate Street Car Shootout series. Invited to the event after a year of running hard at tracks all across the country, they will have their final showdown at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on November 5th and 6th and will compete in such events as the Lucas Oil Road Rally, the Detroit Speed autocross, the Falken Tire Road Course Time Trial, the PowerStop Speed Stop Challenge and the Lingenfelter Design and Engineering Challenge. Most of the invited participant cars are parked inside Optima Alley at SEMA (between the Convention Center and the Westgate Hotel) while a handful of cars are inside on the floor at various booths. We had to walk the Alley and see the cars out there, and we weren’t disappointed…among the cars there, Casey Woodside’s fifth-gen Camaro made the trek out this year after having to drop out of last year’s final event, Rick Hoback’s Corvette is sitting ready for anything, because he still has the parachute strapped to the back of the car, and John Lazorack’s “TRACKSLT” 1988 Chrysler Conquest looks ready to tear Las Vegas Motor Speedway a brand new one.

Click on a photo below to scroll through the gallery!