WTH?
Viper wins on the track. It’s easier to drive around the road course as well, thanks to great feel from the quick steering and solid brake pedal. The Viper is more benign than you would think. There’s so much rear-end grip that it’s difficult to get a little back-end slide using the gas pedal, although the Viper is harder to manage once it does go sideways. We still prefer the Viper’s mild understeer to the Corvette’s tank-slapping oversteer.
So why the second-place finish? Blame the cruelty of the real world. At lower rpm, the exhaust sounds like a tuba having sex with a vacuum cleaner, and the baritone thrum of engine and road at highway speeds gets annoying in a hurry. The trunk volume of 15 cubic feet seems optimistic—a road trip for two will require soft luggage. In a street or track race, the Viper comes out narrowly ahead, but in real life, the Viper’s claustrophobic cabin and noisemaker mechanicals are too much of a handicap to overcome.