Now first off, let's be quite frank about this.
I hate the Dodge Viper. Hate it with a passion. Some of you may ask yourselves why am I so biased against this car when I haven't even sat in it yet. James asked me the other day. Hammond of course, knew the answer, but I don't blame him as he was a guest. Well, more like a gatecrasher, but at least he got to see it. And for those of you who don't know, the Viper, you see, was my wedding car.
But what we have here today is the new second generation Viper and Chrysler, the parent company of Dodge, have wisely decided to spend more than a hundred quid on R&D this time around. A bit like my second marriage then, seeing as the first one was a dismal flop. I thought I might open up the bank book a little bit and see if any of the money spent was worth it. Chrysler have done the same and the result is right here.
The new Viper SRT10 is very much like the old one - it looks the same, it has the same truck engine up front, it's got tyres wider than the Sahara desert and above all it goes like stink. Apparently. Chrysler said they spent nearly a billion dollars on the new Viper and if you ask me, the only thing it bought them was a car that's uglier than the first.
A bit like my wife again, I s'pose.
But the testing ground here, this afternoon was the famed High Speed Ring circuit, a place where I could truly come to grips with the astonishing power of the Viper and try feverishly to avoid a cardiac arrest. I've had one of those and they're not pretty. Cardiac arrests that is. That's what happens when you get married you see.
The only catch was that I had to do it in reverse, which meant the people at Dodge didn't think me capable of taking to the banking at 170 miles an hour or they thought that by doing the track in reverse, I'd kill myself anyway and they'd be one less pesky journalist.
So I eased the SRT out of the gates and whilst I was still trying to get comfortable in the seats, notched the heavy gearbox into 2nd gear. It felt like I was cocking a Civil War cannon and just as I let my foot off the clutch and eased onto the accelerator, the 8.2 litre V10 engine awoke from it's deep slumber. It wasn't much at first, but as I cruised around onto the main straight, I decided to give it a stab and hope that my feeble heart didn't sieze up in abject fear.
I'm not afraid of horsepower, let me be clear on that. I'm not afaid of speed either. If my wife could cook, I'd eat both horsepower and speed for breakfast lunch and dinner, but she can't, so I have to make do with looking for it elsewhere. No, what really frightens me about cars like this is that they're unpredictable. They've got more torque than a tank and tyres that are so big, a set of them would cost you a small house in Hampshire. But even the tyres aren't up to the task of coping with all that power and as was the case with my wedding car, every time I went for the loud pedal, the Viper would try and kill me by pointing itself at the first brick wall it would come across.
High Speed Ring is nothing but brick walls and one mistake and I'd be as famous as Hammond on the six o' clock news.
But the Viper quickly built itself into a frenzy as the needo began to climb and the engine belted out a scream of orchestrated metallic mayhem. In no time, it had blitzed the 60 mark and was beginning to pile on some serious speed and neither the steering or the suspension felt like it was going to fall apart in my hands. I took a stab at the clutch and rammed the hammer into 3rd and all 10 cylinders kept powering away, forcing all 510 horses to the ground as the main straight flew by in a blur.
It was endless. It felt like the Viper could have gone on forever, the engine felt like a 747all by itself and it just didn't feel like it was ever going to stop. But as the first corner approached and flashbacks of my old life sprang to mind, I pounced on the brake pedal and was geniunely surprised to find that the new SRT10 had anchors that could match it's performance. It bled off speed effortlessly and when I feebly turned the wheel in towards the apex of the corner, the car responded beautifully.
There was no body roll, the stop pedal was solid and I managed to wash off half of my speed in the space of a hundred yards. The steering was precise and direct and whilst the weight of the Viper was an issue for me, I cleared the first corner with plenty of room to spare and a beating heart that hadn't siezed.
Bang, off through the tunnel, notch the SRT10 up into fourth, listen to that 8.2 litre engine bellow. You know I could get used to this, the car just doesn't stop pushing, the rear is hooked up like a junkie on rocks and for once I allow my knuckles to stop being so white and my lungs to take a deep breath. The sensation of speed is astonishing and rarely have I come across a car that seems like it's ready to carry on running laps of the equator.
Turn 3 and 4, the infamous S-bends. Brake hard, notch it down, turn into the corner, feeling the steering go briefly light as the front loses a smidge of traction. The old truck engine may now be an all alloy unit, but it still weighs a hefty sum. But the tyres come back on quickly and I keep the Viper tight, taking a big stab at the throttle inbetween the two corners. Brake again, crank the steering wheel to the right and once I'm clear pounce on the gas.
The exit though reminded me why the Viper is so deadly and at 90 miles an hour, the rear end let go and I was greeted with an armful of opposite lock as I fought desperately to bring it back into line. My heartrate had shot up and was now on the endangered species list, but I lifted off the gas, snapped the car back into line and clutched the Dodge up into third gear.
My knuckles had gone white again and my eyes were throbbing with the thrill of not having blinked in three minutes. The Viper screamed over the High Speed Ring bridge.This wasn't a sanitized, watered down and polished up European wannabe, this was still an old school muscle car and whilst Dodge have made this car a lot better than it used to be, they still haven't sacrificed the balls-out thrill of getting sideways at 100 mile an hour.
I darted through the next corner a bit more meekly this time and then fed on the power for a full throttle run at the finish line. 170, 180, 190, 200, the Viper was gobbling down every inch of air and fuel that it could muster and spitting it out the back at a rate of knots that few cars in the world could match. And as I took to the banking at a ludicrous speed, I felt the car wander a little as if it couldn't make up it's mind as to whether it wanted to go straight or turn. It wasn't as direct or as stable as I would have liked, but by god it was thrilling! And as I tore down the main straight and saw the missus waving from the pit lane wall, I smiled in satisfaction.
It was better, the second time around.
Im still looking into the brakes..... I took a short look at it yesterday, before some friends came over, but simply raising the numbers of the brake bias doesnt give the desired result which I thought it would.. So I will come back on it tonight and post up my modifications so you can give it another shot! 
