Here's a couple clips of a Viper doing a few runs. Note the GT3 and Ferrari 712 that blow by. The clips were posted a fellow I came across in the Home Theater forum I frequent.
I'm sure Gard will see the Vette that gets smoked too.
The guy driving the viper appears to be all over the place. On 2 or 3 of the turns it looks like he ends up in the grass. And it looked like a kart behind that Porsche. I didn't see the Ferrari.
I think the camera angle makes it look like he's hitting grass. Didn't appear that way to me. What you thought looked like a kart was the Ferrari 712. It's from the 70's.
Ken posted a link to this forum. I'm the guy in the Viper.
The "kart" is a Ferrari 712, as Ken notes. They are extremely small Can-Am cars from the 70's. (Actually I think the correct designation might be 712P.) I always describe them as a kart with a V12, so you're not far off the mark. They're very cool and quite fast. Here is a random picture of one I found via Google:
I doubt it's what you were referring to, but in the spin video I do end up in the grass -- I was playing with alternative lines through the 2/3/4 turn complex at Sebring, and one of them went very wrong. It looks like a worse spin than it is -- the tires squeal for a long time before I'm sliding anywhere, and a lot of that time I'm actually just going through the turn.
As for the "onelap" video, I was on-track and on-line the whole lap. I intentionally rode the curbing quite often (it is very much part of the correct racing line) but that was actually a very clean lap. If I remember correctly, it is exactly 2:30, which is a decent time for a street car on street tires (a full-race Viper GTS-R running in ALMS usually turns about 2:10-2:15 depending on traffic). Part of what might be misleading is that Sebring has no useful points of visual reference near the track. The best example is the end of the half-mile straight. On an average lap I'm doing 155 MPH when I reach my braking marker, but it doesn't look remotely that fast in the video.
Unfortunately the event was sparsely attended that day (I think we had about 15 cars, versus the usual 60) so there isn't much traffic to keep things interesting. Usually you're on-track with 10 or 15 other cars at any given moment. (Of course, Sebring is almost 4 miles long, so even then, you can find yourself turning a lap almost without seeing anyone else.)
All sorts of cars enter. If any of you have an interest in this kind of thing, check out the website named at the end of the video. It's open to ALL cars (heck, I've seen people run Saturns out there) and each event is priced as cheaply as possible (membership cost me $50 for the year, and I think that event cost me $225 for the full day of open track, plus my vehicle expenses like brakes and tires). It's a great way to push your car (and yourself) to the absolute limits, WAY beyond what you can do in any other environment.
After rewatching the video I see how the camera angle made me think that you were in the grass when you were actually on the curbing. Very nice car by the way.
I have been wanting to go to Sebring, it is only 2 hours away from Gainesville. Do you go there often? I am guessing you live somewhere in Florida?
Gardiner, they sell seat lowering kits that can move the seat as much as 3 inches down.
RL, I live in the Jacksonville area. Yeah, I should have mentioned in my earlier post that SAFE is in Florida, but of course, there are similar clubs everywhere. Even most car-specific clubs (the Porsche Club of America and the Ferrari Owner's Club are two big ones) usually allow other types of cars to run on their track dates. The camera is mounted on a post attached to the firewall behind the passenger seat. The post sticks out between the seats at head level. It's as close to a driver's-eye-view that I could achieve.
The car is a 2001 Viper RT/10 making about 525 HP and about 535 TQ (flywheel, based on a 15% driveline loss). The performance modifications are relatively simple -- a load-driven air/fuel controller, MSD 10mm plug wires and Bosch Platinum+4 cold plugs, silicone smooth intake tubes & the ubiquitous K&N filters, no cats, no muffler, and that's it. Other modifications include a short-throw shifter, AP Racing 6-piston brakes (PFC90 pads in the video, I run PFC01 now), 14" two-piece floating hat ventilated PFC rotors, braided steel lines, Koni adjustable ACR shocks, 18" extra-wide CCW forged aluminum 3-piece rims, and when I can afford it, I like Michelin club slicks but the video was run on a new set of street Pilot Sports (on the stock rims shown in the photo above).
But here is my favorite Viper picture... 51 inches of contact patch.
(And two punctures, DOH!)
It's weird -- I've learned that tire prices fluctuate a LOT. Some people have speculated that it's a supply-driven thing. I've bought rears for as much as $380 each, and I've bought them for as low as $175 each, all from the same place (TireRack.com). Viper owners who race tend to stockpile tires.
Gardiner, they sell seat lowering kits that can move the seat as much as 3 inches down.
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Uh-oh. I think Gardiner's beginning to think about getting yet another car...
It's weird -- I've learned that tire prices fluctuate a LOT. Some people have speculated that it's a supply-driven thing. I've bought rears for as much as $380 each, and I've bought them for as low as $175 each, all from the same place (TireRack.com). Viper owners who race tend to stockpile tires.
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That's pretty odd. Were they the exact same tires? If so, it definitely sounds like a supply/demand thing. Heck, a bunch of us here paid MSRP for our cars! [loser]
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