Testing The 650 HP LE Mans Viper GTS-R - Motorsport Feature

The lone windshield wiper vainly slapped at the rain being flung horizontally by a howling, 150-mph, man-made hurricane; a staggering 650 full-throttle horsepower used up every ounce of grip offered by the foot-wide Michelin racing rain tires. A 100-foot-tall rooster tail of spray filled the mirrors and obliterated rear visibility. Looming ahead at the end of the straight was the first braking marker for a superfast right-hander; last time around, the car slid wide after splashing through the puddle at its apex. This time the upshift alarm, set for 6000 rpm, glowed yellow. There was only one thing to do: Slap the shift lever into sixth and go back to wide-open throttle. Forward vision wasn't any worse than it was a half-dozen mph slower-nor was the tires' grip, in sixth at 157 mph (the terminal velocity reached before I wimped out and hit the binders). If things went wrong, the difference of a handful of mph wouldn't usefully reduce the damage the concrete walls would inflict on the quarter-million-dollar Viper GTS-R.

The full-race Viper was unfamiliar to me and, after no more than 15 laps, would largely stay that way. The track was foreign (literally): I wasn't sure which way all the turns went, and severe jet-lag wasn't helping my dexterity. The weather was what pilots call IFR (instrument flight rules): Water was running down the inside of the windshield, the defogger wasn't defogging, and the single wiper didn't cover much of the windshield-all of which made blind the turn-in point for left-handers. My drenched driving boots were slipping on the pedals, and the seat of my overalls was soaked through to my fire-resistant long johns. Add in neon signs and jukeboxes, make it rhyme, and we'd have the lyrics for a new hit country song.

We were on the French Mediterranean coast at Circuit Paul Ricard, once the home of the French Grand Prix. After an overnight flight from Los Angeles, I enjoyed a nearly sleepless stay in an elegant hotel room, which previously served as the stables of a magnificent 16th century royal chateau. (Ever had a hotel room with an open, 20-foot-deep well?) My internal clock, which had roused me at 2 a.m. local time, said it was Sunday night-not Monday morning-and past time for beddy-bye. An aside: My personal average speed for the action-packed three-day round trip was 189.6 mph (that's the speed of plane flight divided by actual hours on the journey), short of my 238.7-mph personal best last year for a really brief European Grand Tour.

The race car was a Chrysler Viper GTS-R. (Yes, Chrysler Viper. In Europe all Chrysler Corp. products, from Caravan to Neon to Viper, carry one label.) The striped wonder was a veteran of the '96 24 Heures du Mans and last year's BPR Global Endurance GT Series. Constructed in Dodge's Team Viper shops in Michigan, it was campaigned by the French Viper Team ORECA.

Unlike NASCAR Winston Cup cars, which employ nothing from their road-going namesakes, the Viper utilizes a large number of off-the-shelf parts. This is largely because of the rules for Le Mans and the new-for-'97 FIA GT Championship, which replaces the BPR series. The regulations fit well with the GTS's race-car-for-the-street nature and Chrysler's stated desire to race what it sells.

The stock frame is hidden away in a maze of reinforcing rollcage tubing. Suspension arms are straight off the street GTS, save for the addition of hemispherical rod ends. A lightly massaged version of the stock Borg-Warner T-56 six-speed is bolted to the bell housing. Similarly, a blueprinted-but-stock Dana 44 differential was fitted.

The engine retains the stock cylinder block, heads, and crankshaft (the latter turned down to accept the more plentiful Chrysler Hemi bearings). Carillo Racing connecting rods and J+E pistons help the '97 version of the 8.0-liter OHV V-10 spin to a lofty 7200 rpm, 1000 higher than the rev limit we used in France. The sound is more multicam than pushrod, much like a Formula One Cosworth from 30 years ago rather than a current NASCAR motor. Typical for racers, Team Viper plays coy with horsepower figures, but we estimate the '96 version made a bit more than 650 horses, despite breathing through the required pair of intake restrictors. Who knows what it would make with an open intake!

For '97, a new 10-throttle-butterfly, single-plenum intake helps boost power beyond, we surmise, 680 horsepower, and torque perhaps tops a titanic 700 pound-feet with the GT1 restrictors installed. To avoid competing with the loophole-exploiting Porsche 911 GT1 and million-dollar McLaren F1 GTR, however, most Viper GTS-Rs will run smaller intake restrictors-down from 38.2 to 32.4 millimeters-and enter the closer-to-stock GT2 class. At low and middle revs the smaller restrictors don't significantly hinder power or torque, but will cut about 1000 rpm and 100 horsepower off the peak, said Team Viper's GTS-R Program Manager Neil Hannemann, a champion driver in his own right with whom yours truly co-drove a pair of 24-hour race wins.

The result is beyond-outrageous performance. Try 0-60 mph in 2.9 seconds and 0-100 mph in just 5.4 seconds with a 10.3-second/143.9-mph quarter mile. (The rain prevented testing in France, so these incredible numbers were obtained by Team Viper from a Pi Research onboard data-acquisition system affixed to a 680-plus-horsepower '97 GT1-spec GTS-R driven by racer Tommy Archer.)

Race cars vary in friendliness: The NASCAR Craftsman Series truck I tested two years ago felt as familiar and forgiving as a showroom stock Corvette (but a lot louder with more power and stickier tires), but the PPG CART Series car I also previously tested was, to a newcomer, virtually uncommunicative. (In retaliation for a failure to understand its every nuance, the CART car threatened to throw a temper tantrum and smash itself against the wall.) The Viper GTS-R was almost, but not quite, as friendly as the NASCAR stocker. Controls are familiar and felt much like the street Viper GTS I'd driven from the chateau to the track. Although stiffly sprung, the GTS-R was fairly emotive-I easily sensed the onset of understeer before it became a problem. At higher speeds, the big rear wing and aggressive front splitter smeared the car to the road; grip was exceptional for such miserable conditions. Overall, the GTS-R was, I'm thankful, tolerant of driving errors-except, that is, when I was too aggressive with the throttle leaving tight corners. Then it would wag its tail as if to say, "Naughty, naughty."

Chrysler hopes to populate Le Mans and the FIA GT Championship with Viper GTS-Rs and, thus, convince Europeans to think of Chrysler as a high-tech, leading-edge corporation, and buy loads of Caravans and Neons. To persuade team owners to campaign its cars, Team Viper is offering ready-to-race examples for the relatively bargain-basement price of $285,000, which is just $30,000 over last year's price. Of course, you'll need another couple million-and four million would be better-to seriously contest both Le Mans and the GT Championship.

For this test-auto writers from around the world were standing in line to sample the car, and, yes, one from another country pranged it-stopwatches were wisely banished. Yet, lap times were furtively recorded by the onboard computer (along with road speed, rpm, throttle, and steering position, and, for all I know, the dirty words the driver says after a mistake). But the team's computer guru didn't volunteer that information. And my times were so bad, I didn't press him.

Early in my second of two on-track sessions, the downpour rose to what locals call an escargot-suffocator. Coincidentally, the Viper's oil pressure alarm falsely (the crew later determined) broadcast a warning across the digital instrument screen. I killed the engine and coasted into the pits. It was as if God tapped me on the shoulder and said, "That's enough for today. The car is still in one piece, and one needn't be omnipotent to see you aren't going to go faster.

"Besides," continued the voice in my head, "the first time you wreck one of these, I'm closing down this 'We test cool race cars' business."

Just for a change, I listened.

Sidebar Virtuoso Conquest"I am not worthy," I said as I bowed to Viper Team ORECA driver Oliver Beretta after watching-from the intimate position of a GTS-R passenger seat-his virtuoso conquest of the water-logged Circuit Paul Ricard.

Beretta, a Formula One veteran by age 24, is now 27 and lives in Monaco with his beautiful wife. There isn't an ounce of fat on his body, he has all his hair, and he's fearless. He is fluent in at least two languages, and is kind to stray dogs and journalists. Don't you just hate him?

After my ham-fisted struggle with the Viper GTS-R, Beretta took me for a ride in the team's second car. The highlight of his performance was the high-speed right-hander off the back straight. Previously, I braked before the first marker and downshifted to fourth before tiptoeing through, sensing the front tires beginning to slide but fearful that an unexpected transition to oversteer would put me in the wall. Beretta went past the last marker before barely tapping the middle pedal, slipping down to fifth-a gear higher than this clay-footed mortal tried-and balancing push and loose with an exquisite ballet of the throttle and steering wheel.

I hesitate to criticize the Grand Prix field fillers-Beretta's best was an eighth at Monaco in '94-for they are superhuman. It's just that Michael Schumacher is a god.-M.D.

CaptionThe Viper GTS-R race car employs a host of off-the-shelf components: frame, suspension, cylinder block and head, transmission, and differential. The body is a carbon fiber duplicate from the center of the wheel hubs up. In '97 GT1 trim, output exceeds 680 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque.

InteriorEven shifting gears in a new race car presents challenges. The regular drivers shift with just their wrist, but our man tends to use his whole arm, and the seat side wing forced his arm inward, which, once, caused a 3-2 shift when a 3-4 was needed.

Studio Shot Photo

Due to the deluge in France, the performance numbers accompanying this test were produced in the U.S. by this '97 Viper GTS-R. For this season, a new 10-throttle-butterfly, single-plenum intake helps boost power beyond an amazing 680 horses when equipped with GT1-class induction restrictors.

Notes for average speed: LAX to LAX round trip was 68:20. Distance was 12954.

"Viper Team ORECA" (the latter in all caps) official name of race team

"Team Viper" is a division of Dodge that builds Vipers

From onboard data acquisition, test performed with '97 car in Daytona 24-Hour trim.