Sorry about the long post but I think most of you will appreciate this.

Ok. Here's the situation:
I own a completely stock 2000 coupe. I have a friend that bought himself a Porsche Boxter shortly after I got my vette. Of course, I never wasted my time racing him although in his mind, he was equal or faster. After several comments and digs over the next couple of years and laughter from our mutual friends, he went and bought a 911 (non-turbo). To make a long story short, I spanked him. Two weeks later, he bought a new Viper. (He clearly has more money than I do) :-)

Now I should preface this by saying I have both drag racing and highspeed autocross experience. He has none. He now has challenged me and I responded that I would race him, but only at a sanctioned track. Either roadrace or drag. I have no doubts that I could stomp him in a roadrace based on my level of experience. But he knows that and therefore chose the dragrace.

My reasons for accepting the challenge and specifying sanctioned track only are:
1. I wouldn't have a chance from a rolling start.
2. He thinks drag race requires no talent or experience.
3. Our local dragrace track is only 1/8 mile.

Experience and talent only go so far at a dragrace but I figure I could start by getting a set of BFG street/drag tires. (It's been years but I think they still make those?) I believe that would be the number one thing I can do.

Just wondering what you guys think. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated in my quest against this "friendly competition".

Thanks

 

Go with the Nitto drag radials and 4.10 gears. That should help you out some for minimal cost.

 

I agree. The 8th is pretty short, and with those 2 mods, you should take him with no problem, given he can't drive.

 

BF Goodrich makes a good drag radial but don't plan on leaving them on the car or you'll be in trouble if it rains. I have Nitto's on mine and they work well in the rain and will last much longer than the BF's. They also hook well (so well my clutch won't hold) but need to be heated up a little. With either of these tires you'll get out first and perhaps cause him to make a mistake (spin hard or miss). Good Luck.

 

I'd try just a set of ET STREETS.
Go to the strip the week (day) before and even though you are skilled-practice long horrendous, noisy, smokey, burnouts!
On race day keep a quiet profile and then stage just before him with your smokiest, most thundering raucous burn out! He will be startled, nervous, and intimidated.
Then do you most precise carefull holeshot while he spins...and collect your money!
Goodluck,
Roy

 

A good set of drag radials and a 125 shot will take care of him.

 

I have some good comparo data for ya:
We recently had a Vette/Viper shootout here in Portland, Or at PIR Late Night Drags a couple weekends ago. The turnout was really good with a lot of sweet Vipers and Vettes. Even a new 04 SRT-10 Viper showed up. Most cars had comparable tires. Long story short, the top 5 places were dominated by C5's (finished 1-2-4-5) with your's truly pulling an all motor 11.7 @ 122 for the top slot. (the other C5's in the top 5 were Gen3 customer's of mine! cool!).
The fastest Viper was 11.9 @ 119 from an excellent driver. The other 7-8 Vipers, including the new 04, were mostly 12.9x or slower with 110-120 traps, mainly due to limp driving skills.
Point is, if you can really drive the 1320 well and can run a mid/low 12, you will likely take your less experienced Viper friend. Skill will win your race for you. But if your Viper friend suddenly learns how to drive + gets good launch, you will have your work cut out.

The other thing you have in your favor is that you're only running to the 660' (1/8th mile). This will make it so much more difficult for even the brawniest of Vipers to run down a well-planted stock C5. So, ET Streets for sure. I do believe there is a 17" available you can put on a spare set of front C5/ZO6 rims to run out back with about 18psi and a hardy 6-7 sec burnout. Stick a 1.8 or better short time.... you wont get outrun.

Robert
www.gen3motorsports.com

 

Being completely stock, tires are not going to help much. If he is a terrible driver, you might win or else you are toast. Sounds like you have the M6, but if you have an A4, forget it!! I am guessing you might run the 1/4 in about 13.1.

Good Luck!!

 

You've all made very good points. I should've mentioned that I AM running the 6spd. It looks like most of you agree that the tires are going to be the biggest benefit to me since he doesn't know anything about hole shots, tires, tire pressure or reaction time. I'm pretty sure he'll roll up there with stock tires and pressures. WIth that in mind on an eighth mile track, he would need an awful lot of horsepower to make up for it in that short a distance. I will put the tires on only for the purpose of this race. (It'll be worth it to me just to show him that it takes more than money :-) And I would definitely go in advance and practice the psych out treatment as well as for myself since it's been many years since I did the drags. The tires have to help since I know that my stock runflats will just light up in smoke with anything greater than 2000rpm off the line. SO my last question would be what brand and what size and what pressures to start do you think would be best? I'm really going to enjoy this.

Thanks guys

 

After you spank your friend in your own cars, you should see if he'll want to swap for a run. Then you can spank him again while you're driving his car.

 

Keep us posted on the out come of this race

 

Don't beat him too bad.. he might just go out and buy an Enzo or a vette............................. BUT might just get the lingenfelter 55k upgrade for it

 

I raced with a large gathering of Vipers this summer. I was 1 of 2 Corvettes. A couple 9 second Vipers and several in the 10s/11s. Unfortunately I wasn't prepared at all with bald F1s but just came out to have some fun. I couldn't get a 60ft under 2 to save my life. I will tell you from experience drag radials are the way to go.

Unfortunately I always got paired with the 9/10 second Vipers and ran a few with the fellow Z06 owner/neighbor of mine. I could have beat several of the Viper owners who were new to the track based on some of the times they were putting down in the mid 12s. Also we ran a pro tree that night

 

SummitRacing.com sells the Mickey Thompson ET Street bias drag tire and a radial version in 17": http://store.summitracing.com/defaul...&Ntt=ET+street
MTT-3743 is the bias version that really hooks up due to the M5 compound. But some of us have found some discomforting instability running a bias tire on the rear with radial street tire up front. So, the MTT-3743R is the radial version of the same size tire but in R2 compound. Sidewall little more stiff, compound a little firmer, but not enough to make a big difference in traction for a stock or mild modded C5. Find a set of spare C5 front rims to install either one of these tires onto. Heck, I think you can find a 17x8.5 early C5 'wagon wheel' for dmned near free here on the forum if yer lookin for a super cheap way out and would work just fine. Otherwise, the ZO6 offset 17x9.5 would work and look better.

Robert

 

Are you kidding? Tires are a very important factor, especially that its an 8th. If you take 2 bone stock equal C5's, one with slicks, one with street tires, the one with slicks is going to smoke the other one. The vipers biggest disadvantage is not being able to put that power down. If neither of you can put the power down, he will win because when he does hook up, there won't be any coming back. If the vette can launch and hook up from the beginning, he will put several cars on the viper, and the viper will never be able to come back in an 8th mile. Slicks, and 4.10 gears are the best things you can do for an 8th mile car. In a race like that, its all about the launch and low end power.

 

Print out the first page of C5's for sale section and take it with you so you can hand it to him after the race

 

Some of you guys should be comedians! Thanks again for the laughs

I owned a ProStock Hemi Challenger back in the early 70's. Things have changed a lot since then but I think I can still handle the basics. But that's why I'm here for the additional advice. I used to run some huge MT's back then on my shortened Dana rear end. I assume you guys are recommending the extra set of front rims because these tires are not available in the 18" size. I don't think I'll go to the trouble of a rear end gear change and the thought of nitrous is intriguing but I think that would be cheating. I don't know much about nitrous either. They didn't have that stuff back in my day.

I don't know when this will happen just yet, at least a month or so when I get all prepared and get some practice in and then I'll start pushing him. He's the kind of guy that's fun to do this to because he's a bit materialistic and self indulgent. All our mutual friends want to see this happen just for the laughs. It'll be great fun. He's usually a pretty good sport about it. I'll definitely keep you guys posted.