Well - looks like Paolo did what he set out to do in the gross display of HP - man that would have been something to watch.
The rest all seems a bit like opinions right now so I'll wait till the formal results are known and Paolo is back to comment.
He has my utmost respect for doing this whole thing as a privateer.
Sure some loaded individual can spend a fortune on a car, then hire professioanl drivers for the track and perhaps another driver for the dragstrip etc all having had plenty of track time in the car just practising for their events. What does this prove - that money and a full time commitment wins?
we see that already in all sports - money wins.
But here is a guy who is not a billionaire, who paid for his car out of his own earnings, did everything he could in a very short space of time - way to short a space of time, he's had to fit it around his work, he's had very little sleep, drove his own car - and did a great job overall - that's what I see.
He was always bound to have some problems. Even professioanl teams have problems from time to time - the chances of him going and having a fairy tale event wasn't realistic. Over 800rwtq around a roadcourse would be like trying to race around on ice out of every turn. Full marks to Paolo for giving it a great shot. That car will have earned the respect of everyone who saw it run - and no one but no-none there would give themselves a snowballs chance in hell of taking Paolo on along a standing or rolling mile. They'd also all run to mommy before they'd line up in a dyno competition alongside him again.
Whatever the results - the Viper earned respect and so did Paolo. If Paolo ever wants to go back - he'll take with him a wealth of knowledge and exerience learned this time (his first) that he can then apply to next year if he wants to. He's earning his own experiences not buying them. Good for him.
When you want to make a car the fastest at whatever event it may make sense to hire a top gun who specialises in that event - but it's like putting a professioanl boxer in the ring against an amateur. The professional may make it all look easy - but my hat goes off to the amateur who did the hard yards making the most of the limited resources they had, earned the right to be there, and did their best. Top stuff!
Barry, as usual, you have put the whole thing into perspective the way only you can. You are the man!
I have to go shortly as I have to go and do 2 appointments this afternoon/tonight.
I will say this:
1. Roadcourse: a 900 RWHP car(CATS OFF) around the corners was not really a problem at all. Linear power curve = easy throttle modulation.
HEAT was the problem. The nature of the beast is the following: to go ari=ound a roadcourse, you are usually in the 4500-5500 RPM range.
On a tight roadcourse in 90 degree heat, the car simply ran too hot to really get into it for more than one lap. Just realize that any supercharged car with this kind of power would run this hot or hotter.....
I had 10 min. to learn the course. I thought it to be infinitely better to get a feel for the general line after the first time I spun the car as the 2nd turn was slightly tighter than the 1st. So at the limit through the 1st turn you are bound to spin in the 2nd turn.
I went around in 4th-6th gears learning the track. With all the handy information of oil temp, EGT, and the usual coolant temp. I was able to know how hard I could run my car safely.
One problem I found with the roadcourse was that there were no braking markers of any kind. Also, running NOT AT FULL OUT, to learn the course, gave me no feel for exactly how fast I could take some parts that the other cars could take flat out. Also, the other cars would brake at a certain point on the straight(Going 110-120 MPH). So if I went balls out down the straight and was hitting 150-160 MPH, where do I brake? HMMMM...... This was the problem for me. The other problem was the fact that there were walls everywhere since thes portion of the track in inside the oval. The [******] talking Chicago Skyline guy's car blew up and there were plenty of parts left where I knew I could dominate.==> He was a chump for telling me how he could rev his car all day long @ 10,000 RPM and the car would be "bulletproof"...==> I did not want to be a bigger chump who crashed his car before the parts he could most likely dominate. I wanted to represent the Viper Community positively and show what the car could do in ALL the categories. I spent all the money I have to get the car where it is. Some may disagree with this outlook but this was the way I chose to do it! I will go there in the next few months and hopefully do a driving school. As it was, I was only 2 seconds slower than the fastest Supra and Skyline from last year. I know 2 seconds is a lot, but finishing the competition and showing the competitors the awesome power of the Viper was better.
P.S. I pulled 1.097 G's on a 200 ft. skidpad that was littered with sand and tons of dust!
I ran the roadcourse dead last in line to give the car a chance to cool. I knew I had only one lap to run balls out before the car would be too hot for another hour or so..... So, I took one light load 5-10 inches of vacuum warm up lap doing side to side slalom to put heat into the tires. The car was still at 160 deegrees of coolant and oil temperature.==>
Things were a bit questionable with the results in the 1/4. First Paolo was told he did a 12.2 and it ended up being 12.5 officially 
