First, let me thank Dr. Roof and all the sponsors for such a great event! The weather in San Antonio was perfect and it was great meeting up with everybody and putting faces to the names.
We loaded Sal P's Twin Turbo car Thursday afternoon and left Heffner's Performance around 5 pm. The trip was only supposed to take about 26 hours, but I wanted to make sure the car got there sometime on Saturday at the latest, so we gave ourselves plenty of time. It turned out to be a good idea.
About 100 miles into the trip it started snowing and it was now dark so visibility was pretty poor. At first I didn't think it would amount to much, but snow began to accumulate on the roads. The next 300 miles (from 7 pm until 5 am) our average speed was only about 35 to 40 MPH! The storm had come through the area earlier in the day, and by the time we got there, the highways were marginal, but definitely passable. I have a lot of experience driving in snow (lived in the Rocky Mountains for a few years), so I felt safe. I was prepared to stop at any moment if the going got too rough. I didn't want to take any chances with Sal's Viper, so I decided to go slow and steady. I was concerned that if I did pull over, I would get stuck for the weekend, so I wanted to get through this.
The highways were littered with cars going over guard rails, tractor trailers that had jack knifed, and even one tractor trailer had plummeted off a third tier overpass and landed over the northbound lanes. It was clear the driver didn't make it when we saw the body bag in front of the truck.
By the time we got to Tennessee around daybreak, the snow was replaced with heavy rain. Eventually we made it through all this weather and pulled into San Antonio about 1 am on Friday morning. The 26-hour trip took us 32 hours--but we had arrived! Whew!!!
We went to the track on Saturday to watch the test and tune runs. It was great to finally meet a lot of the people that I had only talked to over the phone, on this site, or at The Alley over the past couple of years. I also got to meet up with some of the guys that I met in person at VOI7.
Saturday night was reserved for serious partying (as if you didn't already know that), and as they say in San Antonio "What goes on in San Antonio, stays in San Antonio!!.
As we were walking around town, you could hear Vipers echoing off the buildings in the distance and you could see Vipers parked in various parking lots. We definitely had taken over!! We stayed at the Hilton near the Airport so we didn't get to meet up with the Valencia crowd until the next day. Despite that we managed to represent the Viper nation well!!
On Sunday, I can tell you that everybody was having a good time. Even the guys that were having mechanical problems seemed to be happy to be there. The turnout wasn't quite as large as I thought it might be, but most of the Kings of the track were there. We saw some awesome runs by a lot of cars.
Sal's twin turbo car had just received a new clutch and it just wasn't hooking up. Jason Heffner broke his hand a couple of weeks before the race so Sal P was going to drive the car. Sal is an experienced drag racer, but didn't have much seat time in the Viper and had no seat time with the new twin turbo car. It was definitely a handful. Jason decided to see if he would have any better luck babying the clutch (despite the broken hand) and he managed a 10.5x run.
The engine is completely stock on this twin turbo car. Jason had run a 10.06 ET two weeks before San Antonio (on an older clutch) and the conditions at San Antonio were better than that day, so we had expected to run 9's. The car is definitely capable of a lot more.
There was a lot of excitement about the twin turbo car (and a lot of excitement about my high tech trailer!! hahahaha). Several people got a ride in it and they will tell you that it is awesome!
We left on Monday morning after replacing a part that had broken on my hitch and drove straight through. It only took us 28 hours coming back (with one hour of sleep along the way).
The only downside of the event was the track owner decided to rush the whole event and shut down the track before the agreed upon time. We had hoped to get a lot of time trials runs in after the racing, but it wasn't possible.
The best part of the trip was meeting many of you and burying the hatchet with a couple of others. This is probably not a complete list, but some of the people I met (or got reacquainted with) were:
Tom Welch
Lee Saunders
Dr. Roof
Cudaman
Larry Macedo
Smokin'
John H ennessey
XS TORQ
Big Carrot
Anthony - 98 GTS
GetBit
1Tony1
Serious Eric
nohsreg2000
MHQC
Moundir
Yellow Fever
superbar
GTS Dean
and probably a dozen others I can't recall right now.
It was an excellent event!
-----------------
2000 Black RT/10
Heffner 1000SCi 843 rwhp 792 rwtq 10.20 ET @ 141 MPH
Heffner Performance - Home of the World's First 9-second supercharged Viper!
We loaded Sal P's Twin Turbo car Thursday afternoon and left Heffner's Performance around 5 pm. The trip was only supposed to take about 26 hours, but I wanted to make sure the car got there sometime on Saturday at the latest, so we gave ourselves plenty of time. It turned out to be a good idea.
About 100 miles into the trip it started snowing and it was now dark so visibility was pretty poor. At first I didn't think it would amount to much, but snow began to accumulate on the roads. The next 300 miles (from 7 pm until 5 am) our average speed was only about 35 to 40 MPH! The storm had come through the area earlier in the day, and by the time we got there, the highways were marginal, but definitely passable. I have a lot of experience driving in snow (lived in the Rocky Mountains for a few years), so I felt safe. I was prepared to stop at any moment if the going got too rough. I didn't want to take any chances with Sal's Viper, so I decided to go slow and steady. I was concerned that if I did pull over, I would get stuck for the weekend, so I wanted to get through this.
The highways were littered with cars going over guard rails, tractor trailers that had jack knifed, and even one tractor trailer had plummeted off a third tier overpass and landed over the northbound lanes. It was clear the driver didn't make it when we saw the body bag in front of the truck.
By the time we got to Tennessee around daybreak, the snow was replaced with heavy rain. Eventually we made it through all this weather and pulled into San Antonio about 1 am on Friday morning. The 26-hour trip took us 32 hours--but we had arrived! Whew!!!
We went to the track on Saturday to watch the test and tune runs. It was great to finally meet a lot of the people that I had only talked to over the phone, on this site, or at The Alley over the past couple of years. I also got to meet up with some of the guys that I met in person at VOI7.
Saturday night was reserved for serious partying (as if you didn't already know that), and as they say in San Antonio "What goes on in San Antonio, stays in San Antonio!!.
As we were walking around town, you could hear Vipers echoing off the buildings in the distance and you could see Vipers parked in various parking lots. We definitely had taken over!! We stayed at the Hilton near the Airport so we didn't get to meet up with the Valencia crowd until the next day. Despite that we managed to represent the Viper nation well!!On Sunday, I can tell you that everybody was having a good time. Even the guys that were having mechanical problems seemed to be happy to be there. The turnout wasn't quite as large as I thought it might be, but most of the Kings of the track were there. We saw some awesome runs by a lot of cars.
Sal's twin turbo car had just received a new clutch and it just wasn't hooking up. Jason Heffner broke his hand a couple of weeks before the race so Sal P was going to drive the car. Sal is an experienced drag racer, but didn't have much seat time in the Viper and had no seat time with the new twin turbo car. It was definitely a handful. Jason decided to see if he would have any better luck babying the clutch (despite the broken hand) and he managed a 10.5x run.
The engine is completely stock on this twin turbo car. Jason had run a 10.06 ET two weeks before San Antonio (on an older clutch) and the conditions at San Antonio were better than that day, so we had expected to run 9's. The car is definitely capable of a lot more.
There was a lot of excitement about the twin turbo car (and a lot of excitement about my high tech trailer!! hahahaha). Several people got a ride in it and they will tell you that it is awesome!
We left on Monday morning after replacing a part that had broken on my hitch and drove straight through. It only took us 28 hours coming back (with one hour of sleep along the way).
The only downside of the event was the track owner decided to rush the whole event and shut down the track before the agreed upon time. We had hoped to get a lot of time trials runs in after the racing, but it wasn't possible.
The best part of the trip was meeting many of you and burying the hatchet with a couple of others. This is probably not a complete list, but some of the people I met (or got reacquainted with) were:
Tom Welch
Lee Saunders
Dr. Roof
Cudaman
Larry Macedo
Smokin'
John H ennessey
XS TORQ
Big Carrot
Anthony - 98 GTS
GetBit
1Tony1
Serious Eric
nohsreg2000
MHQC
Moundir
Yellow Fever
superbar
GTS Dean
and probably a dozen others I can't recall right now.
It was an excellent event!
-----------------
2000 Black RT/10
Heffner 1000SCi 843 rwhp 792 rwtq 10.20 ET @ 141 MPH
Heffner Performance - Home of the World's First 9-second supercharged Viper!
