The Viper HL Cup

[Blooze]

See, I was sitting around the other day, watching some NASCAR on my TV and surfin' during the commercials when I runs across the end of a racing show on the Versus channel (they're the ones that are carrying the Indy Car Series this year).  The name of the show was The Dodge Cup.  How very cool I thinks to myself, and besides - one of the venues is just down the road a piece at Jennings Okla., Hallet Motor Racing Circuit.

So I did a Bing on the Dodge Viper Cup...

http://www.viperheadquarters.com/viper_racing/dodge_viper_cup.html

...and found out some stuff...  and naturally, since I got not too much going on with Forza these days, I thunk up another Hot Lap competition.  I swear, I am my own worst enemy with this game.

There is no 2010 Viper acr-X (how did they miss that with all the stuff they had in DLC?) but there are Four GTS-R Vipers that have identical specs and don't see much business.  I was unable to find them on the Auction House.  So I decided to make a subclass of these four cars promptly blew $1.7 on the cars and parts.

Even tho they have identical stats, they all have different Pi ratings, and when run on the 1 mile drag and the Sunset Oval, they are close, but the times do follow the Pi.  So I figgered what with the cars being all so close and all that it would be a good time to check out grip vs. speed builds.  Two cars, the #126 and #1 are both running stock Aero settings - what I call a General Purpose build.  The #57 has the speed build, with Aero set at 60% and a slight adjustment to the gearing.  The #91 had the grip build with the Aero set at 96% and another slight adjustment to the gearing.  Otherwise, the setups are identical.  This may change as I get more seat time in the cars.  They all have a 50/48.5 build.

I hope to get them all painted with variations of the 2010 (final year) special editions.

One other thing about the Dodge Cup.  There was enough interest shown in it that an additional 25 of the acr-X cars were built.  Now there are 50.  Can we say, "Collector Car"?

There is some room on my sheet if some of you want to join in.  All you got to do is blow about half a million on a car...  Let me know which car you are using.  I am starting out on all three of the Sebring ribbons.

A copy of my sheet is attached.

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[Blooze]

So far it has been rather difficult to dicern any difference between the aero packages on the cars.  They are all running pretty close.  For instance, there is only one (0.103) tenth between the four cars on Tsukuba.  There's a little more on the other tracks I've run, but no definite front runner.  The only thing that flagged "something is different" has the Oval track, where the 60% car was definitely faster, and the 96% car was definitely slower - there's 3.5 seconds between them.

After looking over the Viper Headquarter's site I have decided on the following paint jobs.  Now, I am no sort of replica painter type cat so what I am shooting for is more in the "decent facimilie" range...

Car#	Aero	Nickname	Paint Job
#91	96%	Vudoux	Voodoo-ish silver stripe on black
#1	80%	133	Red on black 1.33 replica
#57	60%	Skin	Black on Snake Skin green
#126	80%	PJ	Plain Jane ACR-X racing stripe on white

I have some of the paint jobs started, and a few Vinyls in the works.  It seems that even the beginnings of a paint job makes a car a tenth faster.  Have you noticed that?

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I will add better pictures as they become available.  But, for now...

This is Vudoux.  Not much more to do to it other than maybe some mfg stickers and such.  The car is relatively plain from what little I can tell...


Note the Targa Number panel...

[TopBoost]

Digging the look, Blooze.  This is an intriguing concept... I think I'll pick one of the Vipers up when I generate some in-game $$$. 

[Blooze]

The cars are fun to drive, and although not the glitter of the class, they are able to hold their own.

There are a number of times that I am tracking with this exercise...

• There is of course, the fastest of the set.  But the slowest time is tracked as well - giving a hi/lo spread.  For instance, the hi to lo spread for Tsukuba is 0.362.  Interestingly, the car with the least amount of Aero grip is currently the fastest.
• The difference between the Viper times and the "Show" times are tracked as well.  In the same example, the "Show's" Tsukuba time is only 1.377 seconds faster than the best Viper.  This puts the Viper about 3^rd on my Friends List.
• I am also adding the times up for the environments and checking them against my personal best.  The Road Atlanta times, for instance, are only a couple seconds off my personal best and would be 4^th on my Friends List just behind Warped Passage.

Like I said, fun to drive and relatively competitive.  Painting them up has been fun as well.  Trying to replicate the Badges and such without going completely overboard has been fun.  I am particularly pleased with the ACR-X front fender badge.


This is the PJ (Plain Jane) car.


...and this is the one I call Skin.

I've added a fifth car to the Viper garage - the 2008 Viper ACR built out to 770 Pi.  Numerically, the car shows a clear advantage that has yet to show up on the track.

My next Viper project is to run the 4 Nurburgring P2P stages and then the Nurburgring Big Lap.

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BTW - The next installment of the Dodge Cup will be on Versus at 2:30 Central this afternoon...