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Dodge Viper SRT sets new record at Laguna Seca

The Street and Racing Technology (SRT) team from Chrysler Group arrived at Laguna Seca raceway today on a mission – to recapture the production car lap record at the world-renowned road course in Monterey, California.


In just over a minute and a half, it was mission accomplished.

SRT vehicle dynamics engineer, Chris Winkler, piloted the black and red 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR (American Club Racer) to an unofficial lap record of 1:33.915 (1:33.944 on the pit-lane timer) around the 2.238 mile (3.602 km), 11-turn course – smashing the previous lap record by more than 1.1 seconds.

Remarkably, it was just Winkler’s second session at the track, but he had no troubles guiding the Viper over Laguna Seca’s undulating surface.

“Following my first practice here last month, I came away pretty confident that we’d be able to set a new record.”

“It was definitely exciting but a somewhat uneventful lap overall from behind the steering wheel,” he said.

The Devon GTX, a 485kW one-of-a-kind prototype, set the previous lap record in August at 1:35.075, now 1.160 seconds shy of the Viper.

The SRT10 ACR is an 8.4-litre, V10 propelled monster packing 600hp (447kW) and 758Nm of torque.

Top speed is 184 mph (296 km/h), 0-100km/h is achieved in less than four seconds, 0-160-0 km/h all happens in 11 seconds dead and the quarter mile is burnt off before the clock strikes 12.

The aero package features a “fanged” carbon-fibre splitter in the front and an adjustable carbon-fibre wing at the back creating 1000 lbs of downforce.

The 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR will make its worldwide auto show debut on December 2 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where it will be displayed as one of the last Vipers of its kind.

Earlier this month, Dodge announced that it would build the last 500 Vipers next year, with no promise that the halo car will ever make a return.

But Dodge President and CEO, Ralph Giles, said the Viper would get the send off it deserved and was committed to manufacturing a successor in the near future:

“We’re going to keep Dodge’s performance icon alive and well by not only producing some of the most special Vipers ever built, but we’re also investigating what the next-generation Viper is going to be.

“When we have partners across the ocean who are known as the best sports carmakers in the world, the future opportunities are huge.”

by Tim Beissmann

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