Serious Eric
Enthusiast
Finally managed to get to the track with a Gen2 car. I'd driven my 95 RT at the track fairly regularly for about 6 years before selling it for a 99 GTS. Well just as I was about to track that car for the first time it gets totalled (whole other story). So I reload with a brand new 01 GTS and force myself to wait patiently through a 2000 mile break-in.
A year passes since my last track excursion and I finally get to go back out and compare behavior between the slightly modified RT (exhaust, throttle bodies, Hoosiers) and a bone stock creampuff GTS on street tires.
Got a recommendation from Bill Pemberton on alignment specs (since I know he routinely races showroom stock) and Dave Weaver (master viper tech) dials it in very precisely. Flush fluids and normal prep but other than that it's a showroom stock creampuff on streets.
By Sunday I'm running TWS at 2:01 ... 2 sec faster than my best time ever in the RT on Hoosiers. I can't believe this car handles so much better than the RT and the street tires' grip and progressivity blows me away. Sure I'm sliding around out there like mad, but it's a very controllable slide and drift, not the snap oversteer into the puckerbushes that the RT would do. The Pilot Sports are screaming for mercy, spalling off huge worms of rubber like the Hoosiers did, but they never just grease up and go away.
And then it rains ... track soaked but no standing water. I grumble and contemplate staying in but decide to run anyway. All the fast guys with track prepped cars and more aggressive tires get waaayy slower ... The viper hardly seems to care. Who says these cars are no good in the rain? I'm having a BLAST in the rain, hauling a$$ passing all those fast guys that were passing me in the dry and I'm still running 2:06s in the rain.
So much for the mythology about dangerous viper handling and poor wet behavior. This creampuff is a DREAM on the track. Can't wait to put Hoosiers on this thing.
Thanks a bunch to Bill P for the track alignment specs (I used the less aggressive setup BTW) and to Dave Weaver for an expert job of dialing it in down to the tenth of a degree of camber. That was a fun weekend.
A year passes since my last track excursion and I finally get to go back out and compare behavior between the slightly modified RT (exhaust, throttle bodies, Hoosiers) and a bone stock creampuff GTS on street tires.
Got a recommendation from Bill Pemberton on alignment specs (since I know he routinely races showroom stock) and Dave Weaver (master viper tech) dials it in very precisely. Flush fluids and normal prep but other than that it's a showroom stock creampuff on streets.
By Sunday I'm running TWS at 2:01 ... 2 sec faster than my best time ever in the RT on Hoosiers. I can't believe this car handles so much better than the RT and the street tires' grip and progressivity blows me away. Sure I'm sliding around out there like mad, but it's a very controllable slide and drift, not the snap oversteer into the puckerbushes that the RT would do. The Pilot Sports are screaming for mercy, spalling off huge worms of rubber like the Hoosiers did, but they never just grease up and go away.
And then it rains ... track soaked but no standing water. I grumble and contemplate staying in but decide to run anyway. All the fast guys with track prepped cars and more aggressive tires get waaayy slower ... The viper hardly seems to care. Who says these cars are no good in the rain? I'm having a BLAST in the rain, hauling a$$ passing all those fast guys that were passing me in the dry and I'm still running 2:06s in the rain.
So much for the mythology about dangerous viper handling and poor wet behavior. This creampuff is a DREAM on the track. Can't wait to put Hoosiers on this thing.
Thanks a bunch to Bill P for the track alignment specs (I used the less aggressive setup BTW) and to Dave Weaver for an expert job of dialing it in down to the tenth of a degree of camber. That was a fun weekend.
