Split Screen Vette Vs Viper at Nurburgring

As a team owner not to mention a driving instructor I have learned that while I find different driver’s driving style’s interesting they are not actually important. Early on in my career I thought there was something wrong with this simply because I assumed if you didn’t use the same method/style as someone else who was faster that you would never be as fast. That thinking was entirely wrong. I have watched countless hours of in-car video of myself as well as team-mates who drive for me and while one may be as smooth as silk utilizing only minimum body movement another whips the wheel around like he was swatting at a hornets nest in the car all the while sliding too hot into corners and so on. Even more interesting is the end result… Identical lap time!

Putting different (but good) drivers in a race car are like putting on different pairs of shoes. They both get you to the same place at the same speed.

Considering what a respected formula driver the Viper team used it was funny to watch him have such a hard time using the Viper’s gear shift. After all, compared to what he’s used to driving it must have felt like a caveman’s club. I would like to see how well he would do if he were used to the car.

considering the viper is gutted, had an adjustable front splitter (which isn’t street legal btw), has a huge adjustable rear wing, and isn’t even near as livable day to day as teh ZR-1, i can understand that it knocked a few seconds off the vettes record. here’s to hoping GM releases a ‘hardcore’ ZR-1 along the lines of the ACR “hardcore package”. I’m willing to bet it’d best the viper. as for someone saying the vette cant handle, your obviously an idiot, both these cars have outstanding handling to be able to hold the record for any amount of time around the ring.

Gary, the real humor is in reading “intellegent” (?) comments made by guys like Jason whom are obvioulsy uninformed.

Jason,

What’s the matter… get up on the wrong side of the bed? You vette guys are all alike. Cry babys. Well if the shoe fits, wear it. First of all you apparently don’t know much about cars. If you did you wouldn’t say things like “Viper is gutted”, “splitter isn’t street legal” and the best one of all “knocked a FEW seconds off the records.” First of all the ACR is NOT a gutted car by any means. Motor Trend refers to it as “Probably the best weekend racer yet from Detroit.” In fact it’s a stock Viper with some mods to allow weekend racers to take a street legal car to the track on weekends to have some fast fun. The splitter comes factory installed and is perfectly legal to drive on public highways. I almost spit my coffee all over my key board when I read your comment about a “few” seconds. In the world of motor racing records are generally beaten by as little as hundreds of a second. Needless to say, to be beaten by a couple of seconds is really getting spanked. Lets be honest… Since the day the Viper came out it had a lot of karma. It was fast as hell, looked very cool, well documented that it was faster than ANY American built car of the day not to mention many foreign cars as well and for a hell of a lot less money and it was the brainchild of Carroll Shelby to boot. Any vette guy with an ego had reason to be deflated. As for your term “hardcore package” what in the hell do you call the factory backed vettes GM used to try to beat team Viper in AMLS? Then for the entire time the Vipers were factory backed they kicked the factory backed vettes butt’s for so long they finally hung it up went home. THEN the vettes began winning. I know it’s hard to swallow if you are vette fan but Vettes are NOT the same car as a Viper and they were not built to compete with them. The vettes just thought they were and they wouldn’t be as fast as they are today had the Viper not come along to turn up the thermostat.