SRT Viper GTS-R Puts On Weight

American Sportscar racing was set on fire after the last round of action at the Orion Energy Systems 245 at Road America. For the first time since the year 2000, a Viper beat a Corvette. If you are a Corvette fan then you were undoubtedly crestfallen, but if you are a fan of the sport, the win for Viper added another storyline to an already competitive series.

It was especially interesting to see how the SRT team took the win. Road America is a track that rewards horsepower with its long straights and elevation change. But if you watched the race two weeks ago, SRT didn’t win the race on the straights. When the road turned twisty, the Viper made up time in gobs.

The accomplishment is all the more impressive when you consider the track surface at Road America. The long, snow filled winters of Wisconsin do the tarmac no favors. Drivers and engineers know how slippery of a surface there is at Elkhart Lake and that’s why the SRT team were thrilled to watch the car make up time at turns  one, two, and the carousel.

So what about this weekend in Baltimore? Through two practice sessions it hasn’t been the same Viper. The Z4s, Corvettes, 911s and the Vipers are separated by less than a second, but the Viper hasn’t looked like the front running car it was just a round ago.

A possible explanation could be that for this round in Baltimore, IMSA saddled the SRT team with an additional 30 kilos of ballast. The GTS-R has to stop that extra weight, drive the start/finish straight with that extra weight, and take on the corners with that extra weight.  On a slow and very technical street course, all of that is less than ideal.

This weekend, pay close attention to the overhead helicopter shots especially at turns 4,9,10, and 12. If the Viper can’t maximize its cornering speeds like it did in Road America, it will be very difficult for the team to carry speed onto the straights and make a pass stick under braking.