If there is an individual whose calendar I did not envy, it was Jimi Day’s. The dude has been running strong for a while now, with his starting point being the SEMA show. From there he worked the Optima Challenge event in Las Vegas, then he hopped a plane to Australia for a new take on his baby, USCA Australia. That’s right, now orange cones in the Southern Hemisphere have something to be worried about too! The first event was held November 16-19, 2019 at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria.
Drivers for the Australian USCA got the same four events that we’ve seen stateside: a quarter-mile drag race, a speed-stop challenge (aka the 3S Challenge), an autocross and road course laps on the Calder Park circuit. The classes were reconstructed to reflect Australian options, so you had Classic (pre-1990), Modern (1990-present), and Fast Four (AWD three and four cylinders and rotaries) and the turnout was…fourteen cars. Okay, that’s not a lot but what did show up to show off was good: Among those in the mix was a Nissan 350Z droptop, a Nissan Skyline R33 GTS-T, an LS-swapped 1969 Camaro, an LS-swapped Ford XY Falcon, a Holden Torana and a Mitsubishi Sigma (think four-door 1981 Dodge Challenger) were among the mix.
Unfortunately, a winner has to be crowned, and for the first event Harrop Engineering’s Holden Monaro CV8 was the winner. Nathan Perry, the hotshoe in the Monaro and Chaise Delia, who claimed second-place outright with his blown 2017 Ford Mustang GT, won VIP trips to the 2020 SEMA show and OUSCI competition.
Yes there was a low car count, but there was also little promotion prior to the event. Being an Australian car and motorsport nut you’d expect that I’d have at least heard that it was happening, but the first I saw of it was this video popping up in my youtube recommendations…