The wife and I flew to Ohare and rented a KIA/POS, then drove to the Pekin neighborhood, looked at the Doctor's Roe sc'd GTS. He freaked out when I asked for a test drive. "There was puddles on the road in some places," he said. So the wife and I headed down to Ringgold Georgia in the POS and checked out a Roe supercharged 2001 ACR. The ACR must have had straight pipe exhaust and the steering wheel had a bad shimmy at 70mph and at 80 mph was nearly impossible to hold the wheel. We took it back, declined waiting for a wheel alignment (they could have done that BEFORE I travelled thousands of miles to look at the car??? The Dealership's owner had a 97 Blue/white Roe supercharged car that sounded wicked and consistently went 10.5 with DR on it. That car sounded awesome, drove like a dream ... but had 50Kmiles on it. Price was $53,000 so I passed. Drove all the way back to Pekin and test drove the 98 Red/silver GTS. I did an accidental drift going down the freeway entrance ramp and passed a cop that was driving down the freeway - then pulled onto the freeway in front of him! I slowed to the speed limit (100mph > 60mph) and he just drove by us. The car drove nicely and the Doctor told me that there were 4 rock chips on the front of the car. It was awesome with lightweight rotors, 10 spoke wheels and Random Tech exhaust. Bought it and drove home to BC with a stop in Calgary to visit the in-laws and even though we waited for 3 days there, the snow wouldn't quit, so we drove out of Calgary in the snow.
I would never recommend anyone drive a Viper, especially a Roe sc'd Viper cross-continent in February, but it was an experience to remember. Got pulled over by the RCMP in Williams Lake so that they could ask me "What the hell are you doing driving this car in winter?" A vette is OK to drive in Winter - not a Viper? LOL.
Ted
