The Optima Ultimate Street Car Australia is one of our favourite racing events for the year, with a whole day of motorsport and a huge variety of cars all pitted against each other to find Australia’s best street registered machine.

Entrants take on an autocross, speed stop, hot lap of Melbourne’s Calder Park national circuit and drag racing, with points combining from each for the class and overall results. That means neither horsepower or handling is an advantage on its own, the idea of the event is to find the car with the best balance of all disciplines.

Scotty took on the event last year in the 1UZ-swapped Lexcen wagon, and had all intentions of bringing our L67-powered VN Berlina ‘Supermang’ out for this year’s event. Unfortunately, he got quite sick just a week out from race day, so he wasn’t able to get the VN done in time, and was still bound to the couch on race day.

As a result, I was subbed in with my 1990 Nissan Silvia S13 to bring you guys an episode of Carnage from the event. I did OUSC last year in my standard Holden VZ SS ute daily driver, and loved it! This time around I traded horsepower for handling with my S13 for a different approach.

If you love SR20s or V8s, then I have bad news for you. Being a 1990 model, this car was originally fitted with the earlier 1.8-litre, four cylinder turbo CA18DET, which it still has. The engine does sport forged Wiseco pistons, a larger T28 S15 200SX turbo and MLS headgasket, but otherwise she’s stock as a rock.

With just the standard 6psi of boost and factory side mount intercooler, the odds of it making more than the original 166hp is unlikely. Still, I was keen to have a crack, running in the Tuner class.

Typical Melbourne threw all kinds of weather at us on the day – rain, wind, sun and even bloody hail – so Calder’s already challenging surface was a patchy wet mess for most of the day.

Like last year, the format ran with the autocross and speed stop back to back, followed by the hot lap and finishing the day with drag racing. With a major horsepower deficit on most of the field, all I wanted from the day was to have fun and race against my mates, which Optima is great for.

Fellow Streety scribe Tas McMillan was back in his F6 Typhoon from last year, re-thought with some trick new changes including Shockworks. My good mate Jesse thrashed all Christmas break and right up until 11pm the night before OUSC to get his paddock bomb Datsun 1600 done in time, which somehow completed all the driving events and completed the near 300km journey to and from the event under its own power!

Sadly, the S13 didn’t quite make it through all the challenges without drama, but it did still hold its own in the twisty stuff. So, check out the video below to see how it did!