Re-post with repaired pic links!
ORIGINALLY POSTED BY KEVAN 9.18.05
So, where do we start....ok. Let's actually start with last weekend:
A friend of mine for the past decade and a half calls me up and says he's cruising through Columbus either Sat. night or Sunday. He drives a big truck (not quite a full 53' semi) for the company that puts on the
SRT Track Experience, and is also in charge of the support crew for the event (keeping the vehicles looking showroom perfect, gas/oil/tires, etc.) It's a pretty cool gig, and since he loves to travel, it suits him well. He's really diggin' it. Anyway, I tell him that I've been touching my naughty place for the last 10 months over the Dodge Ram SRT-10. I was hoping that he was driving one of the carriers that the trucks were on, but....alas...it was not to be. He's got the support rig. Just my luck.
So, my buddy comes by on Sunday, we watch the Vikings game at a couple of different bars (He's from MN), and come back here to catch up over a few beers. I showed him the Rusty Cooley "alien hand" clips, and we watched some of "A Year In The Life- Blue Angels". The beers run out, and so do we...and decide to crash. He's got to get on the road tomorrow and get to the event location just outside of Pittsburgh, called Beaver Run (BeaveRun?). It's a new track, and the first time the event is being held there. My friend says, "If there's a spot open one of the days, I'll see if it's cool and try to slip you in....if you're still serious about buying the truck." I proceed to pull up my SRT-10 screensaver and unzip my shorts. He believed me. He said it would probably be very short notice, but he'd call me this week to let me know if anything is available. I find out Thurs. afternoon that there's a spot available on Friday. WooHoo!
I have to be there by 8AM for sign-in, so that means I have to leave here at "oh-dark thirty". I crash out at about 1AM (early for me), and set the alarm for 3:30AM so I can be out the door by 4AM. As I leave the driveway, the rain comes. It only gets worse as I drive east towards Pittsburgh. Then again, maybe it just stayed with me the whole time. LOL It was raining HARD, like torrential. It sucks to drive thru, but hydroplaning at 70mph keeps you on your toes. :-D I get to the track at about 7:30AM, with plenty of time to spare. I park the truck and hook up with my friend. He gets me signed in (about 5 waivers), and I walk back outside to enjoy the view...in the rain. Screw trees and mountains....
look at all that horsepower! Unreal.
In a couple of the shots, you can see the Jemfest Durango!
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Durango 2
The begining of the day starts with some instruction courtesy of the folks from the Skip Barber Racing School. These guys (and lady) are all professional drivers that have won their fair share of events. The leader of the instructors,
Terry Earwood, knows his stuff. He's also quite funny and "only speaks Floridian". LOL It was more like listening to your uncle talk than being in a class. I learned most of what he talked about from my dad about 15 years ago, but the refresher course certainly helped. At first, we were outside on the deck area, but then the rain started coming in sideways...
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Pic 3 (me on the left...front of the class...heh heh)
...and we had to move inside:
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Pic 7 (yes- that's me all stretched out and comfortable)
While we were inside learning, the support crew was lining up the vehicles for us to take to the next part of the "experience". With the class (and rain) over, it's time to head down to the track area and get going.
Drag & Slalom Course
Vehicles:
-Crossfire SRT-6 (supercharged V-6)
-300C SRT-8 (6.1L Hemi V-8)
-SRT-10 Quad Cab (8.3L Viper V-10)
We ***slowly***
caravan the vehicles down to the drag/slalom course (
extra photo). For giggles, we took a pic of the truck's overhead display
showing our MPG on the drive down. That one is for all the eco-terrorists reading this. Love ya.
We park the
vehicles in the staging area (
extra photo of staging), and head over to the tent where instructors Eric Campbell and Tania Bourbonnais give us the low-down on
the course. Eric's a big drag guy, and Tania is a track racer. It's only a
1/8th mile straight, and then you slowly come around to a 5-cone slalom course (
on the right) that takes you back up to the top of the drag area. They ask us to parter up, so each vehicle has a driver and a passenger. The passenger is the 'secretary' to mark down your drag times. I hook up with a guy named
Jeff Wheeler (SRT-4 owner). He's pretty cool, and was as anxious as I. LOL Tania is waiting for you at the begining of the slalom area, and gives you pointers each time you go thru it, and tells you what to watch for with each vehicle (back end of the truck, get closer to the cones with the Crossfire, look where you want to go; not where you are at). It's sort of a warm-up for bigger and better things, and gets you used to switching vehicles quickly. We did two runs in each vehicle.
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Pic 12 (about to blurt out some profanity about power)
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Oddly enough, I posted the fastest drag time of the day, 6.04 sec,
in the blue Crossfire. Remember: the track was very wet when we started, and only really dried out for our last run. The Crossfire OWNED in the slalom section. I'd use a word like "nimble", but....
Autocross Course
Vehicles:
-Neon SRT-4 (turbocharged I-4)
-Crossfire SRT-6 (supercharged V-6)
-Viper SRT-10 (8.3L Viper V-10)
After the drag/slalom course, we caravaned (again, ***slowly***) up to the main building, and the crew had a whole
new set of cars ready for us,
facing back towards the track. The SRT-4's, the Crossfires, and the Vipers. I was kinda suprised when no one ran toward the Vipers. I thought there would have been fights breaking out, but...no such luck. I got in my new favorite blue Crossfire, and we caravaned, you guessed it- slowly, to the autocross area.
After we
staged the cars (
extra photo) and went to the tent, Travis Washay (autocross, enduro, and rally racer) fills us in on the course. It's very tight, with lots of turns, so we probably won't need anything higher than 2nd gear, esp. in the Vipers. He explained about the cones and their setup, so we would have nice visual markers for how/where to turn, and where the apex of the turns were. This time, our ride-along wouldn't be our partner, but one of the instructors giving us direction as we drove. 3 or 4 laps in each vehicle. The instructors riding with us this time were: Ryan Hall, Juan Baubon and (if I remember correctly), Clark Bryant.
We started out in the SRT-4, and worked our way up.
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It's something you don't think about in daily driving, but when racing, the apex of the turn is really, REALLY important. And, how you set your vehicle up for that turn. It sure was nice having a pro telling you when/where/what to do. Makes it a bit easier.
Next up was the Crossfire:
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I wasn't really intimidated when
I got into the Viper. I just felt kinda limited by the track. It was a short, very twisty, course. Then again, the Viper easily does 80mph in 2nd gear, so....I guess I have a jacked definition of "limited". LMAO.
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Make no mistake about it: The Viper is a race car with turn signals. Only if your last name is Andretti or Foyt could this be your daily driver. It is insanely powered, very tight, very unforgiving, and very precise. If you screw up, you will know it immediately. Then again, if you want more power, you will also know that immediately. The car has so much torque, I'm surprised more people don't use them to pull tree stumps. If you're into aerobic neck exercises, this is your ride. The steering is *barely* power (I think it has a tiny fish tank pump), and the tires are wider than Oprah's jeans. Basically, it's a frickin' race car.
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For the autocross, the Crossfire was my favorite. While the little SRT-4 goes like stink, I'm not really a FWD kinda guy. They handle differently than RWD, and that's just what I'm more familiar with.
One of the guys managed to
pop a power steering line in an SRT-4, which gave us a cool smoke show for half a lap. Other than that, the cars remained intact. No spins or grass rides for anyone.
Our class had two 'spectators'; a wife and a fiancee'. When we were done with our laps, Terry asked the ladies if they'd like to
take a ride with he and Ryan. We all
watched in awe from under the tent as Terry and Ryan, who hadn't even run the course yet, opened up their Vipers like I wish we could have. There was a big double-S section, and both guys got a little sideways through those areas, but man...did they haul much bootay. I don't remember, but I think they hit 3rd in some sections.
LUNCH
Well, enough tire screeching for the morning. We caravan (uh-huh....slowly) back up to the main building. I again got in my new fav, the blue Crossfire. There was supposed to be a catered lunch for us, but it was running a little late due to the power outtage earlier in the day (from the typhoon I brought with me). No worries. The class just got to know each other a little better. Jeff Wheeler and I were out side going thru the Crossfire and SRT-10 trucks. Hoods up, trunks open...typical car nut stuff, and took a few extra pics for posterity:
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Lunch was good, and we all gathered outside again, where
more vehicles were ready to be caravaned (fill in the blank)_________ to the road course area.
Road course
Vehicles:
-Magnum SRT-8 (5.7L Hemi V-8)
-Viper SRT-10 (8.3L Viper V-10)
-Ram SRT-10 (8.3L Viper V-10)
Pace Cars:
-Crossfire SRT-6 (supercharged V-6)
Our instructors for this were Dean DiGiacono and Nick Kunewalder. It gets a little intense over 100mph on a big, fast, open course like this, so here's where we pick up helmets.
Dean and Nick give us the low-down on the course, and again explain the cone setups, so we can get the turns down smoother/quicker. There are 4 vehicles on the track at a time: a pace car, and 3 drivers. For this part, we do a 'leapfrog' setup behind the pace car: on the back straightaway of each lap, the car directly behind the pace car will fall back behind the other 2. The pace car can do almost 200mph, "so don't worry about catching him". LOL They told us that 3rd or 4th would be plenty in the Viper and the truck. Ummm...okay. 4th gear in a Viper is about 140mph. Hey- they said 4th was ok. I'm just following the rules.
Some shots of the truck I've been dying to drive for almost a year:
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Here's a quick layout of the track. We only used the North Track:
http://www.beaverun.com/track.asp
Again, we start out small, and work our way up to the big boys.
The Magnums are the vehicle if you're a soccer mom who hates everyone. Yes, it's a station wagon. It's a station wagon that will hang with a frickin' Corvette and eat most Mustangs. There's more
rubber on that car than there was in the latest realease from Vivid.
It's a pretty awesome, versatile vehicle.
The Vipers were next, and wow. As I said earlier, it's a race car with a CD player. It is so fast, and can brake so hard, it's unlike anything else I've ever driven. The only thing that sucked: I had to crouch down in the car to drive it. The tops had to be up (???) and since we had our helmets on, I went from being 6'1", to 6'4" very quickly. My helmet kept tapping the convertible support brace thru the ride. Not that big of a deal for 4 laps.
My time in the truck had finally come. It was.....well....borderline religious. Many of the drivers don't like the 'flying red bricks', but I'm so familiar with my Durango, it's very easy to drive and control.
The torque.
The horsepower.
It's all there at your fingertips and feet. It really is an amazing vehicle.
I found out on my last lap (my turn behind the pace car), that if I hit the turn at the top of the hill in 3rd, I could power down the hill and go to 4th, then crank it and hit 5th on the back straightaway. About 120mph, and it's smooth as silk. I was in heaven for the last 1/4 mile- even pulling into the pits- the feeling was still there. I honestly didn't want it to end.
I reluctantly got out of the truck.
"Hot Laps"
Here's your chance to hop in a vehicle with one of the pros, and have them take you on a sphincter-winking ride around the track. After my 'supreme-being' ride in the SRT-10, I decided I only wanted to do one hot lap, and call it done. I rode with Ryan in a 300C. It was kinda fun (and very comfy!), but nothing compared to driving the truck. I kicked back and watched Terry and the other drivers push the cars extremely hard over the back straightaway. I'm guessing close to 140mph in the Vipers.
Sorry there aren't more pics of the road course section. Jeff and I kinda put our cameras down and focused a little more.
It's now a little after 5PM, and the Hot Laps are over. We all parked our helmets back on the table and walk (huh?) back up to the main building. I thought this would be a
pretty slick setup in my driveway, but then again...I really like black.
Once inside, Terry and the drivers presented us with some cool SRT stuff, and a certificate. I'll defintely be picking up a frame for mine.
It was an amazing day. I walked back to the prep area and thanked my buddy profusely. He said it was his late b-day present to me. LOL We chatted for a bit, and I hopped in the Durango for the 3 hr. drive home. Thankfully, it wasn't raining.
I was extremely exhausted from the day of driving, but somehow found my 2nd wind about 9PM, and stayed up until 4AM, pulling pics off the camera and talking to a few friends online. They, like my dad, were amazed that I was allowed to get behind the wheel of ANY of those cars, let alone a Viper. LOL
