The legendary supercar of the ’90s was the Dodge Viper. Everyone began to learn about it with the inserts from the gum “Turbo” because it was not just an insert, but with a picture of “Viper”. This car appeared in many racing games.
All fans were very upset when the manufacturer announced that 2017 would be the last year for the Dodge Viper on the assembly line.As soon as this news made its way around the internet, fans created a page on the “Gofundme” platform to raise the sum of $200,000 for a worthy last trip. The way chosen was extremely ambitious – to break the record for a totally production car on the Nürburgring racetrack. In 2011, the record belonged for a while to the car of the previous generation.
Despite the change of generations, the Dodge Viiper in 2017 remained in many ways the same “old-school” car with “Turbo” gum inserts. The huge hood hid underneath a lower-shaft V10 engine with two valves per cylinder, whose ideology dates back to the days of Elvis. Rear-wheel drive only, and the gearbox was a manual six-speed. It was decided to curb this wild combination only in the last generation with the help of electronic system of stabilization.
Naturally, the choice for a record run of Viper was not simple. It became the top version “Ciare” with 654 horsepowers with an aerodynamic package “Extreme” and a safety cage. But the main condition was observed – it was a road car, which can be bought in a usual car showroom.
The first attempt to break the record was scheduled for July 25, but it didn’t happen because of the rain. It seemed that the German weather decided to chase the Vipers back to Texas. Over the next two weeks, the cars failed to complete a single lap in perfect dry conditions.
The first dry lap, however, ended with an impressive time of 7.03 minutes, and although it was still far from the team record, the drivers were confident that the car could get out of 7 minutes.
September 1 was the last day the Vipers could still try to break the record. Unfortunately, in reality, things turned out much worse. A tire exploded on the Dodge Viper driven by Luca Stoltz. The car wasn’t wrecked, but it did require a differential replacement. Only one Viper remained in service, with experienced driver Lance Arnold behind the wheel. The Vipers want to break the record of the lamborghini huracan, which passed in 6.52 minutes.
In the last lap the tire failed again – the road tire “Kumho”, in which Viper was shod, was not created for the Nürburgring records and could not withstand the frenzied loads. Unlike the factory teams, the fans could not afford to prepare any special rubber compound for the record. But that, in part, was the point of the whole endeavor, to show that the average Dodge Viper, even retiring, could still compete with the fastest supercars in the world, each of which cost several times more than it did.
We’ll hardly see another supercar this brutal, honest, yet insanely charming.