'02 Real Street Eliminator

Longtime Car Craft readers will remember the glory days of our annual Real Street Eliminator (RSE) series. In 1986, former Car Craft Editor Jeff Smith (currently pulling the strings at Chevy High Performance) presented a challenge to anyone with a wild street machine who'd never bothered to test it to its full potential (outside of bench racing, and that doesn't count).

The first RSE tested the mettle of four street machines to determine if they were capable of coping with real-world situations. Standardized performance testing was at the core of the competition, which included acceleration, braking, and slalom sessions, but all vehicles also had to demonstrate rational behavior in traffic without attracting equipment violations. There was even an emissions test. For the next 12 years, RSE grew increasingly popular and attracted a growing influx of entries for each successive event. If there was a downside, it was that many people seemed to be building cars specifically for RSE, thus taking the event out of the realm of Joe Homebuilder's capability. So, after the '98 RSE, the event went on hiatus--until this year when we teamed up with Year One and held the revised RSE in conjunction with the Second annual Year One Bristol Bash, held at Thunder Valley in Bristol, Tennessee.

Unlike previous RSE functions, which had devolved into Motor Trend-esque testing with hired professional drivers, this time we insisted that the owners drive their own cars to show off their skill behind the wheel. We think this is a much better test of real-world street machines, and above all, it serves as a great equalizer--high-dollar parts don't automatically mean big points in the field of competition.

Testing consisted of four categories and a total of 270 points, the bulk coming from autocross time trials and quarter-mile dragstrip passes worth 100 points each. The remaining 70 points came from Craftsmanship and the Ride & Drive categories (see "The Results" sidebar). Real Street Eliminator isn't for the timid. The contestants vied fiercely, yet fairly, in what turned out to be an all-out showdown between five truly impressive street machines culled from the extensive pool of applicants we received. Read on to see how these savvy car crafters did, and keep an eye out for next year's RSE application, as we're already concocting a plan for RSE '03.Check out the competitors, the action and the results in the sidebars below.