Hi all;
Had fun last Friday doing the Chrysler SRT Driving Experience run by Richard
Petty's people at the Beaverun Racing Complex in Wampum, Pa. Chrysler provided
all the vehicles we drove---330 hp supercharged SRT6 Crossfire's, 425 hp SRT8
Hemi Chrysler 300Cs, Dodge Magnums and Chargers, and Cherokees, and 520 hp
Vipers.
On the 1.6 mile road course, two of us at a time followed an instructor in a
leading car at increasing lap speeds.
At a point on the track where I could sneak a quick look I was doing 90 thru
one of the curves (the ESP was really working) and probably 130 on the main
straight.
We drove Crossfires, Cherokees, and Vipers on Autocross courses. My son Chris
had the best autocross time of the day and won a Richard Petty award to be a
passenger during "qualifying laps" at a NASCAR track of his choice.
They also had a short dragstrip, with ETs of about 6 seconds (the SRT6s and 8s
all do 0-60 in about 4.5 seconds). I won seven out of nine of my timed drag
races---thought that was pretty good at 69 with my competitors being 20 years
younger, had a lot of reaction times under 0.2 seconds. The trick was setting
the prelaunch braked RPM at no more than 1500, any higher RPM would trigger
the ESP at launch but the 4wd Cherokees would tolerate 2000 RPM.
Found out there is a huge difference between my ordinary 300C and the SRT
version. The event was free for my son because he bought an SRT8 Cherokee but
paid $500 to bring me along as a guest driver (got some of my tuition money
back!).
Lance
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