SLAUGHTER'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

[slaughterj]

SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

WHATTA GREAT EVENT! Looking forward to the next one! Things started off slow with the rain and all, but after that, it was full-on fun!

Anyway, here's my story:

WEDNESDAY:

Janni & Henry Cone (NC VCA officers) planned out a convoy to leave Wed morning (thanks for the work on this!), and I figured that with them trailering, that I would take my time packing and catch up along the way rather than starting at the meeting point. With some "spirited" driving up to the 130mph range, I ended up catching them at their first scheduled stop! Having seen the weather report that morning, I went ahead and put my top on at that point, which was a good thing, since shortly thereafter and for the remainder of the drive, the rain came down. A few highlights of the drive:
1. Took some video by hand while driving!
2. All the GTS owners in the convoy were pansies that trailered their cars, while all the RT/10 owners drove theirs

3. Only one minor problem along the way, one trailer had a tire go out, and their spare didn't fit?! Someone else had one that worked though.
4. Did a "spirited" fly-by past the Cones (trailering) at about 120mph, which scared Henry according to Janni!

We got in, checked in, and I met up with Ewave (Paul from Dallas) who I was rooming with. I went to register, and while in line, was b*tching about the board moderation to Jay Herbert who was in line with me, he asked what post in particular, and I referenced my one about cleaning my balls. He said he was responsible for its deletion?! I was like ***?! So I gave him a bunch of sh*t then and thereafter

We then tried to find dining, but everything in the hotel was closed or booked up?! A few of us slogged through the rain over to Appleby's to eat. Afterward, I checked out the Jack Daniel's bar, but there were few recognizable faces, so decided to call it a night.

THURSDAY:

And the rain continued

Got up, drove around the parking lot and took some photos of the most different looking Vipers, and drove over to get some footage of the parade staging. While there, someone was getting in to drive an SRT, so I walked over to the passenger side and opened the door and took a look around, first thoughts - looked tighter in the interior, and saw what appeared to be suede center sections in the seats. I was starving so I went to eat with the NC crowd rather than participate in the raining parade, and while at lunch, in came ACR Jim, Mark Cooper, and Bernie Katz!

Then back at the hotel, I'm walking along, see this dude taking photos of the GTS and SRT out front, stop to talk, and find out it's AB! We shoot the breeze for a while, checked out the display cars (SRT Truck - looks cool, Comp. Coupe Prototype? - very nice) and head to the webhead meeting.

Then at 4pm was the webhead get-together! I got the chance to meet the following, in no particular order: Y2KGTS (Chris), Birvini (Team Birvini, Tracy & Bill!), Markus Reinhardt, Wild Dude (Michael), SmokinV10 (Jason), Ron Hickey, Ariel, Frank 01 GTS?, Andy Levitt, Bill Pemberton, Viper Wizard (Chuck Tator), and probably others I can't think of right now. Even though the bar didn't open until 5pm (we met at 4pm), they opened it early for us, and we had a good time. There was a group of website committee members present, and Smokin and myself had some discussions with them about the moderation and content of the off-topic section, but I didn't see anything changing (relevant quote by Henry Cone: "Off-topic doesn't mean off-color" Whatever.). A few other quotes:
1. By one webhead about Smokin: "I thought he would've been bigger."
2. By Smokin (not in response to #1): "I only do blondes."

Then was the Thursday evening buffet dinner with Tony Estes and Wolfgang Bernhard as primary speakers, both of which did well. The dinner itself was the worst of the weekend, not good food, was running out, table accomodations were poor, etc. (Later meals were great, much smoother, better food, etc.) However, the booze was free, and that helps a lot!

The free-flow booze continued from there into the night, quite fun hanging out with everyone!

After the dinner, the memorabilia area opened up, and people flooded in, packing into each booth, especially the Dodge one with a huge snaking line of customers in it

I got to check out Sean Roe's booth, Doug Levin's, and a few others. And from there, the drinking continued! Later on, drinking at the Jack Daniels bar was going on, met Darryl with Dodge, as well as some people who worked with merchandise, so I b*tched about the selection of merchandise, and got a business card to respond to with ideas on what should be available.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

CONTINUED:

FRIDAY:

Friday morning began the meat of the event, and the rain had pretty well trickled down to a mist at worst by this point - sweet! For my group, it was the group photo first, got to check out a lot more cool cars, and got a chance to look at the RT/10 Spyder up close - seemed cool, but for the price, I don't know... From there, we went on the Natchez Trace parkway drive, had a great time driving along with the various vipers at various stretches of the drive, at lunch with Wild Dude, and the commerative coins we got at each stop were cool (one for the 92 rt/10, one for the 96 gts, and one for the 03 srt-10, though I understand there was a 4th coin for the comp. coupe that only a select few got...). One the return trip, then detour people off the parkway for alternative scenic driving, but since there were no more gift stops that way, I just stayed on the parkway for some "spirited" driving - 40mph speed limit mostly, but triple digits were seen

Friday afternoon I attended a PVO tech session on the SRT. They provided a lot of information about it, including 0-60 braking in less than 100 feet, 0-100-0 goal in 13.2 seconds, etc. Several questions were asked, including the status of the coupe, which they said they wanted to do it (note, no commitment to it), but had to wrap up the SRT, get out the comp. coupe, do the SRT truck, and SRT Neon, so it would be several years out, regardless. Because it's stupid to have a car that is pre-setup for 6pt harnesses but not being able to be driven on the track, I asked about the status of a hard top, and their response was "Uhhhhh....". I was not satisfied with this response, but later that evening, I rode the bus with Steve from Autoform and asked him - he said he had some ideas, but still needed SRT access to get measurements, and the idea he had would involve replacing the trunk lid as well. I followed up on Dodge's situation with Herb Helbig later that evening at the Wild Horse Saloon, and he said they were working on one, would want to do one (so as to get a piece of the action for such sales), but didn't want to openly commit to doing one until it had been worked on further.

After the PVO-SRT section, I met up with Markus and Chuck Tator for a drink the Jack Daniels bar, and from there, caught the bus to the evening's dinner and entertainment at the Wild Horse Saloon! The event there was great! Food was good, pool tables were free, the space was large, and must have cost a lot of $ to have for the night! Some suckers got selected to go out and do the YMCA dance, including Darryl of Dodge who I pushed into it

Later on, Darryl and Tony Estes introduced me to Wolfgang Bernhard (bad idea!), who I introduced to my dual-intake system (i.e., my 2-****** beer drinking)! I asked Tony Estes who was on the short list for website banning, and he told me, but I can't pass on the info

Yet later on, Wolfgang was out getting jiggy with it on the dance floor, and apparently was giving out his cell # to some ladies

Some notable late night drinkers included Jon McGuire, Team Birvini, and Chris from South Carolina - we shut down the Wild Horse, and I crashed sometime around 2am, only to have to get up about 6am for the track, ugh.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

CONTINUED:

SATURDAY:

Saturday morning meant an early rise to get the track, up at ~6am?! Got up, gassed up, checked my tire pressure, and hit the road (track was supposed to be 40 minutes away). Note, the following is just one example of the many cool run-ins with other vipers on the road throughout the event

While on the way to the track, softtop still on (we'd be able to drive on the track with no top, woohoo!), I end up with two other vipers ahead of me (none behind), a red GTS and a red Gen1, on the last highway (840) to the track. The morning had been real foggy, but as we went over a rise, it cleared up, and the red GTS took off, followed by the Gen1, then me (none of us knew each other), and soon we were over 150mph on our way to the track!! With that out of the way, the track speeds were going to be anticlimatic.

Once at the track, I ended up with the 2nd group, so no track time for a couple hours (wish I could have slept in), so I hit the off-road course in the Durango (little worried it was going to roll, bottomed it out a few times too), and hit the skid-pad but unlike many others, no wildass spinouts! RC Viper (Randy) from NC let me store my stuff (along with Andy Levitt's and ACR Jim's) in his trailer, thanks Randy! At the track were all 3 colors of SRTs, but looking at the suede center sections, I could already see problems (one had a "ring" in it, looked like someone had set down a paint can sized object in it, and it left a permanent impression).

Once on the track, they rotated driving instructors (had to have one with you), but I quickly disliked how it was handled compared to ViperDays. The driving instructor commandeered the rearview window (which they didn't seem to use), and without warning, took ahold of my steering wheel while I was going through a curve to let a Skip Barber car go by - I was like ***?! Further, each of the driving instructors would contradict one another as to what to do in various parts of the track, which was very frustrating, and would keep reaching for the steering wheel, very annoying! The one thing I learned on the track there was to not ever go to a Skip Barber school!! The $700 reg fee saved me much more $ to learn not to attend anything they run.

On the way back from the track resulted in more "spirited" driving, and ahead I spied a black SRT being driven back. I zoomed up next to it, looked over and saw 2 "Viagras" in it, so I waved...GOODBYE!, and took off, and of course they didn't even try to keep up

That afternoon I skipped the auto-x to go back to the memorabilia section, hung out with Sean and Becky Roe, and was with an interesting group at one point - Sean Roe, Doug Levin (who was over from his booth), SW, and Ben Treynor - lots of cool discussion, including notably SW's 10.68 run with the Roe supercharger in Wed drags (I believe SW's car was substantially similar to the components on Sean's car when it was dynoed, but I think SW had slicks on).

On to dinner that night, yet another great event! Food was much better in the banquet hall than 2 nights before, and the booze continued to flow. Awards were given out for various past officers, etc., there was a video guest "appearance" by "Bob Lutz" (comedy routine), and was a pumped up event with rockin' music by Aerosmith, which led many to think they would be the secret band playing, but the band who played was Diamond Rio (apparently big country band, but I never heard of them). Also, Dodge snuck in a Crossfire for display outside the banquet area. I headed out to drink in the main area and the "cigar" lounge outside, including further drinking with Team Birvini (got a photo of me "in" the SRT) and Chris from South Carolina (all of which, including me, shut down this event, like the one from the night before). I also hung out with the rowdiest table, the German - Japanese table outside! Quite fun night!

SUNDAY:

Sunday morning was time for packing, and my SRT drive. The SRT drive was short, but the brakes were good, and I did get in a fat burnout down the length of the front stretch (held it straight), to which the driving instructor's response was simply "Nice launch!" The SRTs were getting beaten on, but what I was really surprised to see what the beating the side sills were taking from people getting in and out - have you people never gotten in your own viper?!

I packed up, checked out, ate lunch, and caught up with Markus, who had a gift for me - a book about Bavaria, so as to entice me to visit, which I really want to next year! Then for the drive back, I held it down a bit initially, just in case of the law dogs, but after a while, I had to go! What was ~9hr trip there, ended up ~7hr trip back, with "spirited" driving up to 130mph!

CONCLUSION:

I had a helluva time, great event overall, and enjoyed hanging out with everyone, especially Markus, Chris from SC, Sam TEAM, Team Birvini, Ewave, Wild Dude, JMcGuire, Mark Cooper, Chuck Tator, etc. Looking forward to the next one!

 

[slaughterj]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

A few followups:

Like as Biff noted in another thread, my car doesn't leak driving along, but did have floorboard dampness after sitting in the rain overnight, ugh.

I expected to see more hotties among the Viper men's significant others, but saw fairly few - fair amount of silicone, lots of overbleached blondes, but not much in the way of hotties

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

I don't remember anything from Saturday night. I drank irresponsibly!

 

[Jason-Middle Tennessee]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by slaughterj:
A few other quotes:
1. By one webhead about Smokin: "I thought he would've been bigger."


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That would be me. I'm only playing Smoker!!

 

[SmokinV10]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by slaughterj:
A few other quotes:

By Smokin (not in response to #1): "I only do blondes."

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am actually an equal opportunity employer

 

[slaughterj]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

More & more keeps coming back to me! I also met Tony from GA (1TONY1) at the webhead event and other times and Terry from Tampa (tmcalist) at Sean Roe's booth!

 

[slaughterj]

Re: SLAUGHTER\'S VOI7 REPORT! - LONG!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SmokinV10:
I am actually an equal opportunity employer

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, if I'd have known that, I'd have lined you up with some employees