'95 DODGE VIPER DRIVER'S SCHOOL

"Snakes in the Grass!"

The '95 Dodge Viper Driver's School was quite an experience for all those who went, either as a student, instructor, or spectator. The sound of 18 Vipers running together at speed was quite something! As with all schools run by the BMW CCA, it was efficiently run and administered. Todd Tiede, et al, did a great job trying to separate almost 60 students with little to no track experience into workable run groups.

Saturday morning went well until I heard during the student assignments that there was a twin-Turbo 800 horsepower Viper here, and the driver had virtually no track experience! AAGGGHHH! I didn't draw the short stick, and luckily both of my students were very cautious. They also had my favorite student's trait--they listened. My first student, Don, had the highest mileage Viper I've ever seen--just over 22 thousand miles. He had also won low e.t. at the last Viper Club drag race, with a 12.77 second 1/4 mile. There was one other car with 10k on it, but the rest of them had less than 4 thousand miles. It was refreshing to see that at least some of these cars actually get driven.

My other student hadn't been on a track before, but was eager to learn. Jeff got the hang of it pretty quickly, and continued to improve every time we got in the car.

Don's first track session went well, but since he had the car figured out and had been on the track at Road America he was getting pretty frustrated with some of the slower drivers. Officially the instructors are supposed to make sure their students let faster cars by, but sometimes this doesn't happen. One particularly bright student figured out that since all the other cars in our group had the same power, once the track cleared in front of him, he could keep every one behind him by standing on it down every straight. Since we can't pass in the corners, he had open track to work with. He was all over the track, without any real sense of the proper line, and several times got very close to losing it. After about 10 laps of this Don was ready to vapor-lock. I told him to grid a-s-a-p for the next run session so we would be the front car. He did, with bright-boy lining up right behind us. We tried to explain to him that he was holding everyone up, but it did no good. I told Don to open up with a few hot laps. With 10 seconds between cars as they leave the pits, our friend wouldn't have a prayer of catching us...

When we got the wave-off to leave, Don laid some major rubber leaving the pits, hammered second and third, just touched fourth, and braked for turn one. Turns one through three went by flawlessly, or so I think. I was busy trying to refasten my seat belt, which had come adrift coming out of the pits. With the g's we were generating, the inertia reel wouldn't let go. I was being thrown about the cabin with nothing to tie me down, and it took both hands to try to unreel the belt fast enough to have enough slack to get the belt all the way to the buckle. Turn four is a big left-hand sweeper, and when I looked up we were flying! Every time I just about got the seat belt buckled, we'd pull huge g's one way or another and I couldn't unreel the belt that last 2 inches. Five, six, and seven went by exactly on the racing line. Three more corners, and I'd have the whole front straight to get him off the gas long enough to latch my belt. Suddenly we arrived at eight way faster than we had ever been before. Uh-Oh.

I felt the front end push more than it should have at the turn-in, and consequently we ran a little wide. Don lifted just enough, and by the apex had the front end sticking again. Then with the new-found courage saving the slide gave him, he BOOTED it up the hill. He ran out of talent just as we got to the crest, which is the ONLY place where lifting will bite you without fail. I had just about gotten my belt fastened when that instrument in the seat of my pants told me we were no longer facing the direction we were traveling. I looked up through the windshield to find trees passing by the front of the car at an alarming rate. Over my right shoulder was a great expanse of open track, which was fortunately the direction we were actually going. The slide stopped after about 90 degrees, then snapped back clockwise. This time it went 110 degrees, and Fangio himself couldn't have saved it, and Don knew it. He planted his feet on the brakes and clutch, and we both swiveled our heads to see where we were going. We left the right side of the pavement at about 65 mph, leading with my door. Figures, doesn't it? As soon as the tires left the pavement, a dust storm enveloped the car that was so thick I couldn't see my own hands leaving fingernail marks in the dashboard. We slid to a stop without hitting anything, and as the dust, grass, dirt and rocks slowly settled around us, we looked at each other to see how the other would react. I said, "I can't leave you alone for one lousy second, can I?" We both burst out laughing, and sat there for several seconds collecting out thoughts. "Well, it's time to go to church. Let's talk to the Reverend Tiede." Todd read us the fire & brimstone speech and turned us loose. Soon we were back at it, and the rest of the weekend went without incident. (At least for us!)

During the track time I learned that while Michelin 335/35- ZR-17's may stick like hell, they have to be ON THE GROUND to work. The cars are bouncing around so much, even going down the front straight, that it was hard to keep the car in just one lane, and many people were lifting at the top of the hill over 100 yards before the FIRST braking marker. (Most drivers with experience at this track brake at the FOURTH marker.) Also, there was very little warning in the corners that the tires were about to slide. If the rear end got more than a few degrees out of line it was over. More than one instructor lost it big-time and went off to explore the infield. Amazingly, not a single car was hurt all weekend, even though we had a 'CCA record number (9!) of off-road incidents.