Last year, Jake Rozelle campaigned a custom C5 Chevrolet Corvette in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Association series. Over the winter, Rozelle made several changes to his fifth-gen Vette in order to prep it for the upcoming USCA season – the most notable of which was a new Lingenfelter Eliminator Spec R crate motor.
The Lingenfelter Eliminator Spec R motor is a naturally aspirated V8 based around the LS7 V8 design. The engine comes with forged pistons and connecting rods, ported and polished heads, aftermarket valve springs, a Lingenfelter Eliminator Series camshaft, 103-mm throttle body and a custom carbon intake manifold, among other upgrades. All said and done, the Eliminator Spec R crate motor is good for 800 horsepower and will rev to a sky-high limit of 8,000 RPM.
Thanks to this naturally aspirated beast of an engine, Rozelle has now won both Optima Ultimate Street Car events held so far in 2020, which included rounds at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Willow Springs. USCA events feature a road course time attack challenge and autocross, and road rally challenges as well. Competitors are also judged based on the design of their vehicle and the engineering work that has gone into it. Only registered, street-legal cars qualify for USCA events and entrants are given extra points if their vehicle retains creature comforts like air conditioning.
Check out the highlights from Rozelle’s winning run at Willow Springs in the video embedded below. We’ll also be paying close attention to his performance throughout the season, as we get the feeling the Eliminator Spec R engine will power his purple Corvette and him to more victories as the year goes on. The next USCA event will be held at Pikes Peak International Raceway (the speedway, not the hillclimb course) in Colorado on the weekend of July 11th.
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