Hennessey 650R Viper

1BADDAM

Venomous Snake Handler
Joined
Jul 30, 2001
To be fair - I would call this an encounter and not really a kill.

To set the stage - I''ve seen this Viper (2nd gen) three weeks prior and some time ago on the same parkway and at around the same time. I was heading out to a car meet and had the TTA in its usual street trim -:D 110 in the tank and wearing MT DR's, boost was set at 24 psi - yeah I dont' drive it much.

As luck or fate would have it, I ended up making a right onto the 6 lane parkway and took note of the red Viper accross the intersection waiting his turn to go. Knowing the last time I've seen this car - the owner drives very spiritually, so the odds he would catch up (3 miles to the highway and 6 red lights) were good.

Like clockwork - red light ahead turned amber and I came to a stop and took pole position in the #3 lane. Looking back no Viper could be seen. I accelerated away from the pack of cars at the light (maintained about 5 psi until the posted 55 mph) and created a gap from traffic. Approaching the next light I payed no attention to the rear view and coasted up to the red again in the #3 lane. But before I came to a complete stop, I looked in the rear view and caught the Viper jockeying to get behind me through traffic as the #1 & #2 lanes were occupied.

Knowing when I pulled away from the light he was going to slingshot around (not really a matter of if, but at what speed), I rolled off the green light slowly with about a pound or two of boost and about half way throught the intersection I pinned it. The whole time I'm checking the rear view (even when the tiny cloud of black boost blow-by hit his windshield) to see what he was doing. As soon as he saw me stab it, he was in it as he went sideways shortly after I nailed it. I maintained the three cars I had on him and he grabbed second and got squirrley again. He closed the gap slightly up until 90 when I got out of it and did the classic fly by.

Interestingly enough the light ahead turned yellow and he had the opportunity to stop and we would have been lined up this time, yet he chose to hit it and go through the intersection on the yellow (really orange :D).

Much to my dismay, the V10 with $35k in Hennessey magic couldn't reel me in. I know had this been from a 60 punch he would have sent me home crying like a school girl, and it wasn't an even start, but the funny thing about it is the obvious frustration (running the red) that was generated either from his inability to pedal all that horsepower or being thwarted off by a white ho-hum Fireturd, and/or realizing that John Hennessey just charged him for that stroked V10 and didn't actually do it :eek:

Needless to say, I would have liked to take advantage of the drag radials if he would have stopped and see what a 0 to whatever match would have yielded.
 
Way to show him!:biggrin:

I'm still waiting to find this giant winged Viper that killed me on my old combo.

I did stomp one in my Camaro a few weeks back, but that one was blue. The one I'm looking for is red.
 
I am assuming it was a Gen 2 car? Just an FYI, not all 650Rs were 510 CI....some were just head and cam cars. I put a few of those together when I worked for John. ;)
 
That's a real kill IMO. Nothen stagged or set up. A real world race goes to show HP aint everything. U gotta hook and know how to drive for it to matter.

I'm sure he went home and surfed the internet for viper upgrades.
 
I'm

"I put a few of those together when I worked for John".
Not too sure I'd announce that on the net!:eek:
 
I am assuming it was a Gen 2 car? Just an FYI, not all 650Rs were 510 CI....some were just head and cam cars. I put a few of those together when I worked for John. ;)

As mentioned it was a 2nd gen. Yeh, I've read a few posts and news articles about John H. billing for full built strokers, but giving the customer just a heads/cam package, as well as other shady business practices. In fact, one article quoted an ex-employee describing this, was this you by chance?:biggrin:
 
As mentioned it was a 2nd gen. Yeh, I've read a few posts and news articles about John H. billing for full built strokers, but giving the customer just a heads/cam package, as well as other shady business practices. In fact, one article quoted an ex-employee describing this, was this you by chance?:biggrin:


That was me...AutoWeek article. :eek:

@ Chuck, I'm not worried about that association...there are others in the game that are just as shady (if not moreso) and didn't get any press because they didn't build any high-profile cars. If you follow that market, in the 8 years since that article came out it hasn't hurt him any....HPE is bigger now than it was when I worked there.

Good kill though...I bought my TTA when I worked for John and I kept it at the shop to work on it, during that time we were finishing the first Venom 800 (Motor Trend cover car / Orange GTS) and one of the MT editors was checking out my TA, taking some pics, etc. He told me a story about working out of the LA office in the late 80's and early 90's and being charged with picking up the press cars for testing. He went to PAS to get the TA for the testing....they took it out for the drag part (I think OCIR) and it ran a corrected 12.9X. When he sent the copy back to Detroit, his editor called him and asked if it was a typo because there was no way that car ran that and it certainly couldn't be used as test data....LOL.
 
That was me...AutoWeek article. :eek:

@ Chuck, I'm not worried about that association...there are others in the game that are just as shady (if not moreso) and didn't get any press because they didn't build any high-profile cars. If you follow that market, in the 8 years since that article came out it hasn't hurt him any....HPE is bigger now than it was when I worked there.

Good kill though...I bought my TTA when I worked for John and I kept it at the shop to work on it, during that time we were finishing the first Venom 800 (Motor Trend cover car / Orange GTS) and one of the MT editors was checking out my TA, taking some pics, etc. He told me a story about working out of the LA office in the late 80's and early 90's and being charged with picking up the press cars for testing. He went to PAS to get the TA for the testing....they took it out for the drag part (I think OCIR) and it ran a corrected 12.9X. When he sent the copy back to Detroit, his editor called him and asked if it was a typo because there was no way that car ran that and it certainly couldn't be used as test data....LOL.

Thanks, being able to play around with a car of that caliber was pretty unique.

Very cool story about the TTA. I've heard of a few stock TTA's that have run bottom 13's and Ivan who used frequent the boards clipped off a few 13.0x and followed it up with a 12.99 - this with 40* temps and updated tires on a 5k mile car.

Having driven my TTA since new in 89' - the stock gatorbacks were bricks after a few thousand miles, so stellar E.T.'s on a factory stock car would need to be on fresh tires to get all the torque to the ground.:D
 
Top