Optima’s Ultimate Street Car Challenge is coming back to Australia in 2024, returning to Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne on Saturday 20 April.

As the name suggests, the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge is designed specifically for street-worthy, registered machines. Entries are open to all types of street cars, from drag-and-drive to pro touring, Japanese, European exotics, and anything in between. If it has rego, it’s in!

Competitors take on a wide variety of driving challenges, designed to test the cars and drivers in all types of motorsport. For the event at Calder, there’s a hot lap of the national circuit, a full quarter-mile drag pass, a speed stop challenge that incorporates motorkhana and go-to-whoa, a short sprint section through twisties, and heaps more!

The overall prize for the event includes flights, accommodation and two tickets to the 2024 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. As part of the trip, winners will also get to see the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational event in Vegas.

Entry spots are capped at just 80, opening on 19 December at 11am AEDT right here. If the driving events are a bit much for you but you’ve still got a nice car you want involved, you might be keen to enter the VIP Park-Up show ’n’ shine instead. General admission spectator tickets will also be available, and all entries and tickets can be purchased at the link above.

This will be the third Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge in Australia, with all three taking place at Calder Park, the first in 2019. The bastard spicy cough got in the way for the next few years, so we weren’t treated to another instalment until 2022.

The 2024 running should be a cracker, with a bunch of our staff already daring each other to enter their machines for bragging rights. Local legends like Heath van der Waerden’s Torana hatch and James Mackie’s XY Falcon have made appearances in the past, blazing tyres in their Aussie muscle machines.

If this all sounds bloody exciting to you, head here to book your spot for a day of driving fun!