Bret Voelkel wins Wilwood Brakes Speed/Stop Challenge

The Wilwood Brakes Speed/Stop Challenge is likely the most-challenging event in the OPTIMA Faceoff, OUSCI and other similar events, in terms of familiarity. Competitors often get opportunities to hone their skills on the autocross or on road courses, but this event is somewhat unique to these types of events. It has an acceleration component similar to launching on a dragstrip, but the traction conditions are much different. It also has a handling component similar to autocrosses, but almost designed to get the back end on a car to come around at any moment.

The braking component may be the most-challenging, because there is a sense of urgency to get to the stop box as soon as possible, but in doing so, drivers tend to overshoot the box. The pressure in this event is intense, as the difference between winning and finishing out of the top-10 is often less than a second. The only way to get familiar with this event is to do it, which ends up favoring competitors who have done it in the past. There are a lot of familiar names amongst the top finishers, with Ridetech's Bret Voelkel topping the list in his '33 Ford Coupe, with a fast time of 19.511 seconds, just 13 thousandths of a second ahead of second-place finisher, Brian Finch. See the entire finishing order here: