No I haven't. Only 19 years old, would love to though. Maybe I can be a millionaire one day and sell wholesale Halloween costumes .

 

You'll find that awd is not much use for a track race car, more weight, more front end weight for more understeer, doesn't really help you get more power down if the car is set up right to begin with, etc. Obviously rally, wet road racing, street cars, etc. it can be very helpful, just not likely around the Nurburgring in the dry.

 

it would in this case, the car has so much traction control it would only use what it could at the time, and on that back straight it help a lot.

 

Sounds like fun. Hope you get some pics and start a post when you get back. Good luck.

 

The GT-R is also weighing in at over 3,800lbs. That's fat by anyone's standards. 120hp aint enough.

For comparo the ACR hardcore is at 3,366lbs. Still a little heavy but not too bad considering it's got a 511 cid V10.

The ZR1 is only a few pounds lighter at 3,324.

If I were a Viper hater I'd be a little worried about that 7:22. There is no way that lap was anywhere close to the edge, anybody can see that. Two missed shifts and bouncing off the rev limiter? Dear Gawd there is a chunk of time to be knocked off that 7:22. The lap is actually so bad it makes a guy think the driver was sandbagging.

As opposed to the ZR1 which looked smooth as silk to me. Hard to say how much time he left on the table. Maybe a second or two? Dunno.

 

It appeared smooth as silk because it wasn't even a pro driver, and he was taking it easy.

Even though the driver of the viper messed up a few times, he pushed the hell out of that car. you can hear it bottom out, bounce off the rev limiter before corners instead of up and then down shifting to take care of the car, etc etc

 

But that is the difference. In road racing smooth = fast. The good ones make it look easy.

The tires on the ZR1 were squeeling on nearly every turn and he wasn't afraid to step on the gas coming out. And he made it look smooth.

The Viper didn't start to smooth things out until the last third. And the Viper has so much torque there is absolutely zero reason to rev it to the limiter before shifting. I think after missing a shift early on (he missed two total) he was hesitant to use the gears knowing that missing shifts was gonna be costly. So instead he ended up bouncing off the limiter which had the same costly results.

 

Chuck, I think you are right. Definitely some sandbagging going on here.
Just on paper alone, the Vette and the Viper should walk all over the GTR much more than the few second margin that seperates them now. Sandbagging is a tactic that the domestics have played with each other for years. Something I think Nissan is just beginning to figure out.

Why pull out all the stops when you don't have to? Right? Let the other team make a move, then let go the big guns. GM posted their record with an engineer behind the wheel, not a pro driver an Engineer! Putting a pro in the seat is a weapon they chose to hold back on, because they didn't need it yet. When the GTR Spec V rolls out and beats the ZR1's time, GM will just pop in a pro driver and beat the GTR Spec V with the ZR1. This is how the game is played. Viper is on top now, no suprise to me. It's a dadgum street legal race car! You know the best part? The Euros are probably hating that this battle is raging on their turf and they haven't fielded a contender yet in this production car class that is worthy of the viper, GTR, or the ZR1...especially at their respective price points.

 

^

Naw we are not hating on this, we only think its a little odd to compare road legal cars on a track with such hard conditions you wont find anywhere else on earth.


For what I've heard most of the Germans would go for the Viper or the Vette anyways, because the GT-R is STILL a rice burner in their eyes, no matter that it runs terrific for its weight and cost as half as much as a little bit slower Porsche turbo which weights 800 pounds less and has 20 Nm more torque.

doesnt matter, its all about the image. If I would buy a GT-R, and my neighbour a shitty SLR McLaren, all the people would suck my neighbours dick for having a ride with the SLR........only the younger would know what the GT-R can do.

I also don't know which car from the 4 best german car manufacturers could compete against the ZR1, Viper and GT-R, since they all swear on N/A engines with big displacement, with some exceptions like the Porsche Turbos, Audi with the new RS models and BMW with the 135, 335 and the V8 TT X6, Mercedes with its V12 TT or the supercharged models.

The other problem are the gas prices, you guys complain about yours.....did you see what we pay in Germany for 1 Gallon of 93?

almost 10 Dollars.

thats one other reason, the manufacturers can't afford superleight, badass sports cars because not many people would buy them (take the M3 CSL for example).

BMW lately canceled the E92 CSL project, what pisses me off, because it would be to expensive and almost no one would buy that car, they keep focusing on the X-Platform models, bringing out a X5 M with V8 TT.

thats contraproductive in my eyes, those car only go fast in straight lines, but still have quite good cornering abilities since the manufacturers don't use suspensions from Charlton Heston's carriages.....anyways, its getting more and more "american".

No hating.

but all what people worry about at new cars is that they have a lot of extras, what makes the cars heavy.....Audi builds the engines in front of the front axle, what makes the car understeer alot, even if you have Quattro (its actualy only a FWD with the ability to switch to 4wd at the point of traction loss).

atm, no german manufacturer is going to build a compareable super sport car:

- to high gas prices for the german customers

- to much costs for designing and building such cars.


we'll have to see.

 

Speak for yourself bro.