I thought he was talking about a daily driver. If it's a drag car I would definitely go with a gel-cell such as the orbital or optima. If it's a hard leaving car a lead acid battery is a poor choice because of the slosh and depending on how it's mounted the plates can shift.
I have had decent luck with the optima but my supplier said they started getting a lot of warranties a year or 2 ago. I thought they had improved. The optima has a 3 year free replacement warranty now so I would think they must have fixed the quality issue?