2011 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational Preview- Matt Farah's '98 Corvette
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- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Batteries
- Location
- Los Angeles, CA
If you don't know Matt Farah from his work on The Smoking Tire, you may recognize him from The Car Show on SPEED TV. Farah's '98 Corvette will be running in the 2011 OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational, presented by K&N Filters & Wilwood Brakes and is the focus of today's preview.
Farah bought the Vette new in 1998, with his Bar Mitzvah money and since he's been so busy driving other people's cars on TV ever since, the Y-body only has 26,000 miles on the clock. The list of modifications it has accumulated in that time includes a Vararam air intake, Holley throttle body, mass air meter, fuel system, a ZO6 intake manifold and a set of Trick Flow heads. Exhaust runs through Kooks long-tube headers, a Trick Flow x-pipe, and a GHL race exhaust.
On the suspension side, Matt's Vette now rides on a complete Pfadt coilover system with front and rear sway bars, while Stoptech calipers and rotors handle braking on all four corners. If Farah's wheels caught your eye, it may be due to the fact that they are a one-off, custom design by Proformance wheels (19x10s in front and 20x12s in the rear) and feature a carbon-fiber outer lip.
Farah's Vette is basically a bolt-on car and even though it lacks some of the big horsepower and torque numbers of many of the other entrants, it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a contender. Farah's Vette still benefits from a factory design that is thirty years newer than many of his fellow competitors and has also benefited from key suspension and brake upgrades. What the Vette may give up in power on the road course, could be covered in handling on the autocross and braking in the speed/stop challenge.
Additionally, Farah has probably logged as much track time at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch as anyone in the field, as that track is used frequently for his TV work. If you'd like to see how he stacked up with the rest of the field, you can add the OPTIMA Network for free on Roku and watch all the past OUSCI TV Shows for free.