SoCal Rebell
Enthusiast
Well the 7 racks in 7 days is over and the Vipers finished 1, 3 in Touring (street tire) class. A huge thanks to Paul Mumford (PMUM) for all his help and the hospitality of his trailer. And a big thanks to JoeB for going above and beyond to help. We were really hoping fora 1,2 finish but a highly modified ZR1 driven by a retired NASCAR driver edged out our problem plagued "02 GTS.
Things went bad for the #208 car driven by SSpeed Racer and myself right from the getgo. The plan was to leave for Pahrump early Sat. morning trailering the Viper to my dad's house in Vegas with my Jeep GC, drop the trailer there (in touring you must drive the Viper between tracks) and use the Jeep as a support vehicle loaded down with tires, oil, brake pads, ect. Well we had the hot tire setup of MXX3s, 325/18 front and 335/17 rears mounted on Purner wheels that I use for my 00' Viper's Hoosiers. Well John meets me at my house we load the jeep and put on the wheels as we move the Viper to load it on the trailer the car is grinding bad in the rear. What we found out was the 17" rears are fine for a non-abs car but with an abs car you need to grind a bolt down on each side or you gouge the inside of the wheel (which we did) it took 5 attempts of grinding and putting on the wheel before it was ground enough to go (3 hours late).
Day 1 at Pahrump we're on the track for the first lap and a poorly routed brake line was rubbing against the 17" wheel and broke. Now if you don't complete at least 3 laps at each track you're disqualified. It's Sunday (mothers day), we're in bum f**k Egypt with no brakes. John calls one of his drivers and we offer him $100 to grab a box of old brake lines in John's office and drive it 200 miles from LA to Baker where I met him in my Jeep got the parts and drove the 90 miles back to the track like a madman to arrive 20 minutes before our last session. It was amazing to watch all the fellow racers help us to put it on just in time to get 4 timed laps, we didn't get the DNF but were low in the standings.
Day 2, Willow Springs (big track), the "Fastest Track in the West" was well suited for the Vipers easily taking 1, 2 and even beating most of the Unlimited cars.
Day 3, Streets of Willow, a very small very tight track PMUM got the #1 spot in touring but we lost our abs, flat spotted our tires and did not fair well. PMUM wanted our MXX3s (not the set we flat spotted) so we swapped him our 4 MXX3s for a brand new set of Pilot Sports for the back and he also loaned us a set of 315 Pirelli Rossas for the front, you gotta love this guy.
Day 4, Buttonwillow (clockwise), uneventful place well even without abs
we ordered a set of Purner 285/18 shaved MXX3 tires for future use.
Day 5, Thunderhill not having abs is killing use, JoeB drove 180 miles from Danville to watch us race, we decided to blow off the 2nd session and hit a Dodge dealer 38 miles away to bleed the abs pump and scan the codes. Halfway there we realize we forgot John's "special" brake fluid at the track, we give a call to JoeB who is still there and he delivers it to us at the dealer, what a guy! We find out from the Service Dept. that we have a bad speed sensor on one of our front wheels. Not a hard thing to replace but impossible to get within the next couple of days. JoeB to the rescue, he has a '01 Viper and the speed sensor is the same for the '01 & 02', he offers to go home take it off his car and then get up at 4:30am and drive it the 220 miles to Buttonwillow before our first session, is ths guy great or what!
Day 6 Buttonwillow (counter clockwise) JoeB arrives with the sensor and we install it, he stays the whole day and helps in the Viper pit, by the way did I mention I love this guy. T1 is tight now with the exception of PMUM who is WAY in 1st (in Touring) winning every track but the race for 2,3 & 4 was really close, us, a red ZR1 and a Z06 from Virginia. John went out with the new shaved MXX3s and didn't like them, I went out next session and smoked them, the biggest flat spot anyone ever seen, scratch another set of tires. Last session if we are to place 2nd we must beat the ZR1 at this track, with the Pirellis back on the front and the track going away from the heat of the day John drove like a madman and turned his fastest times of the day only to lose by 17/1,000ths of a second (not the 79/1,000 I mentioned earlier), that was a tough one. Now we must fight the Z06 for third.
Day 7, Las Vegas Speedway (inner track) PMUM on street tires is 5 points ahead of a race prepped Porche on slcks for the overall (touring & unlimited) lead. Unfortunately it is a tight 1.5 mile course that heavily favored the Porsche with its 18" slicks. John & I kicked butt and got 3rd.
So in final sumation, PMUM won touring and came in 2nd overall, he also got the Topgun award as the best overall driver. We got 3rd in Touring. We drove 2,400 miles, got lots of bumps and bruises and just plain old had a blast. Results shoud be up at www.opentrackchallenge.com.
Things went bad for the #208 car driven by SSpeed Racer and myself right from the getgo. The plan was to leave for Pahrump early Sat. morning trailering the Viper to my dad's house in Vegas with my Jeep GC, drop the trailer there (in touring you must drive the Viper between tracks) and use the Jeep as a support vehicle loaded down with tires, oil, brake pads, ect. Well we had the hot tire setup of MXX3s, 325/18 front and 335/17 rears mounted on Purner wheels that I use for my 00' Viper's Hoosiers. Well John meets me at my house we load the jeep and put on the wheels as we move the Viper to load it on the trailer the car is grinding bad in the rear. What we found out was the 17" rears are fine for a non-abs car but with an abs car you need to grind a bolt down on each side or you gouge the inside of the wheel (which we did) it took 5 attempts of grinding and putting on the wheel before it was ground enough to go (3 hours late).
Day 1 at Pahrump we're on the track for the first lap and a poorly routed brake line was rubbing against the 17" wheel and broke. Now if you don't complete at least 3 laps at each track you're disqualified. It's Sunday (mothers day), we're in bum f**k Egypt with no brakes. John calls one of his drivers and we offer him $100 to grab a box of old brake lines in John's office and drive it 200 miles from LA to Baker where I met him in my Jeep got the parts and drove the 90 miles back to the track like a madman to arrive 20 minutes before our last session. It was amazing to watch all the fellow racers help us to put it on just in time to get 4 timed laps, we didn't get the DNF but were low in the standings.
Day 2, Willow Springs (big track), the "Fastest Track in the West" was well suited for the Vipers easily taking 1, 2 and even beating most of the Unlimited cars.
Day 3, Streets of Willow, a very small very tight track PMUM got the #1 spot in touring but we lost our abs, flat spotted our tires and did not fair well. PMUM wanted our MXX3s (not the set we flat spotted) so we swapped him our 4 MXX3s for a brand new set of Pilot Sports for the back and he also loaned us a set of 315 Pirelli Rossas for the front, you gotta love this guy.
Day 4, Buttonwillow (clockwise), uneventful place well even without abs
we ordered a set of Purner 285/18 shaved MXX3 tires for future use.
Day 5, Thunderhill not having abs is killing use, JoeB drove 180 miles from Danville to watch us race, we decided to blow off the 2nd session and hit a Dodge dealer 38 miles away to bleed the abs pump and scan the codes. Halfway there we realize we forgot John's "special" brake fluid at the track, we give a call to JoeB who is still there and he delivers it to us at the dealer, what a guy! We find out from the Service Dept. that we have a bad speed sensor on one of our front wheels. Not a hard thing to replace but impossible to get within the next couple of days. JoeB to the rescue, he has a '01 Viper and the speed sensor is the same for the '01 & 02', he offers to go home take it off his car and then get up at 4:30am and drive it the 220 miles to Buttonwillow before our first session, is ths guy great or what!
Day 6 Buttonwillow (counter clockwise) JoeB arrives with the sensor and we install it, he stays the whole day and helps in the Viper pit, by the way did I mention I love this guy. T1 is tight now with the exception of PMUM who is WAY in 1st (in Touring) winning every track but the race for 2,3 & 4 was really close, us, a red ZR1 and a Z06 from Virginia. John went out with the new shaved MXX3s and didn't like them, I went out next session and smoked them, the biggest flat spot anyone ever seen, scratch another set of tires. Last session if we are to place 2nd we must beat the ZR1 at this track, with the Pirellis back on the front and the track going away from the heat of the day John drove like a madman and turned his fastest times of the day only to lose by 17/1,000ths of a second (not the 79/1,000 I mentioned earlier), that was a tough one. Now we must fight the Z06 for third.
Day 7, Las Vegas Speedway (inner track) PMUM on street tires is 5 points ahead of a race prepped Porche on slcks for the overall (touring & unlimited) lead. Unfortunately it is a tight 1.5 mile course that heavily favored the Porsche with its 18" slicks. John & I kicked butt and got 3rd.
So in final sumation, PMUM won touring and came in 2nd overall, he also got the Topgun award as the best overall driver. We got 3rd in Touring. We drove 2,400 miles, got lots of bumps and bruises and just plain old had a blast. Results shoud be up at www.opentrackchallenge.com.
