Our track has open test and tune sessions on Wednesday and Friday nights and I'd been dying to get my car to the track, so last night was the night.
The track is closer to my office than to my house, so I got up yesterday morning, put on my suit and tie and just drove the Viper to work. I think I set off a half dozen car alarms while driving through my parking garage. The car sounds wicked cool in a concrete garage.
Towards the end of the day, I changed out of my suit, threw on a pair of jeans and tennis shoes and headed to the track.
I've never driven a car on ET Streets before, so I was very tentative about tire pressure, what RPM to leave at, etc. As such, I started out my making a couple of 1/8 mile passes. I learned pretty quickly that the ET Streets hook much better than Kumhos. I bogged the first couple launches and ran a 1.8 and 1.7 60'. Right at the 1/8 mile, I would stab the brakes to keep from getting booted.
First pass:
60' 1.856
1/4 11.46
MPH 82.36
That seemed to raise some eyebrows.
Let the car cool down and went back out and tried again.
Next pass:
60' 1.733
1/4 11.27
MPH 79.90
Now I've got people surrounding the car when I pull in. A couple of the old timers, who are obviously all too familiar with the NHRA rules, stopped by and joked that I must not have a cage if I'm on the brakes that hard at the 1/8. Spent a while answering questions, letting people take pictures of the car, look inside it, sit in it, etc.
One of the local street racing guys came over and asked me if I was going to make a full pass. I told him I was just working on launches and didn't want to get kicked out. He told me the guys in the tower were dying to see what it would do on a full pass and not to worry about running it out the back door.
So I got back in line and made another pass:
After that, I was pretty much done for the night. Got back in the car and drove it home.
For a first time at the track with the new setup and new tires, I was pretty happy. You can tell that I wasn't too aggressive on the launch or the shifts. Plus, the DA here sucked last night. It was something like 3250'. I'm positive the car has a 9 second pass in it.
Drove the car to work, drove to the track, and drove home without any issues whatsoever.
Thanks UGR! What an amazing car.
Now that I'm a little more comfortable with it, the next time I'm going to let it rip.
It's a 9 second car for sure. With some good driving, 137-8 will get you in the 9s. At 143, you should be able to get a 9.6-9.7 with some practice. Nice job JB. What was your best time with your old Roe?
Gotta love hitting the breaks, it pisses off track officials who are itching to throw you off lol. I knew a guy down here who had a friggen daily driver Ford Explorer running 11's around 120 and would keep hitting the brakes to avoid being booted (was like you, running 11's at 70-80 mph lol), Moroso Officials were getting ticked so last run he said fuck it and ran full out and they banned him lol.
It's a 9 second car for sure. With some good driving, 137-8 will get you in the 9s. At 143, you should be able to get a 9.6-9.7 with some practice. Nice job JB. What was your best time with your old Roe?
What was your 1/8 mile time?
If you get a 1.5 60' time, you'll get your 9's
Thanks. Believe it or not, the 60' on that video pass was a 1.54. It sure doesn't look like a catapult or anything, but it got out of the hole pretty good.
The car goes perfectly straight with no drama. I was running a little more tire pressure in the ET Streets because I was worried about tire sway having never driven on them before. They were at 18 psi. I could easily have dropped them another couple of pounds and been a little quicker off the clutch. I think the car can go 1.4x even on that stock suspension. I just need some more seat time.
My 1/8 was a 6.6 @ 110.8, I believe. Those slow and easy shifts on the 1-2 and especially the 2-3 dragged me down a bit. But I didn't know what to expect as far as tire movement, suspension unloading, and things like that.
MY best time with the Roe was a 10.98 on drag radials with street tires up front on a warm day. When Joe Donovan was in town, we went out to the track on a nice cold day, he put some skinnies up front and he got the car to go 10.43. He's also a heck of a driver.
My car still has stock suspension, stock transmission and stock halfshafts (although my Unitrax titanium ones have been on order for like 8 weeks). I didn't want to break anything, so I took it easy last night.
I think with some more practice, those numbers will keep going lower and lower.
Nothing like driving the car to work, driving the car to the track, ripping off a low 10 at over 140 and then driving home.
Spent a while answering questions, letting people take pictures of the car, look inside it, sit in it, etc.
