SRT Track Experience:
Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI
October 21, 2007
Homeasted-Miami Speedway, FL
May 18, 2008
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For someone that has not yet done an SRT Track Experience, I hope this story will inspire you to register for one... come on you've paid for it already!
It is included with every new SRT vehicle purchase. For those that have, I now understand how you feel every day driving your SRT!
I decided to do my first SRT TE at the fastest track in USA... Road America located in beautiful country north of Chicago in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Thanks to my biggest SRT registry contributor J.P. who provided me with a free pass, I flew up to Chicago and made a road trip out of it. Boy was it fun,
the track was super fast and due to a low turnout I was having the time of my life! People were literally tired of driving which I was extremely happy with
because you didn't have to ask me twice to jump behind the wheel of the souped up Charger or my favorite Crossfire. I very well exceeded speeds of 130mph
sliding all over the track but having a ball.
The highlight of the day was a hot lap with an instructor in a 500hp Viper SRT10... the whole ride felt like the tires were going to stop gripping but they
did their job well and we stayed very close to the leading Viper doing a hot lap with another attendee. The Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 was equally as
impressive, and although it always sounds like the instructors are trying to sell more of these trucks by praising them so much, I really see why they
talk so highly of them, these are the fastest trucks in America.
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For my second SRT Track Experience I brought my best friend Nick along. It took me a long time to convince him to go but with the introduction of the new
600hp 2008 Viper SRT10 he cracked like a nut, and with the promise of a visit to Margaritaville in Key West the deal was sealed.
As with my previous experience J.P. tried to help out but the two VIN#'s he gave me were already expired, talk about a bummer! Not to worry there were
two very cool folks on the forums (Husker and MR-SMITH) that elected not to do an SRT TE themselves so I was able to purchase their passes for about half
the going rate. It was great and again Nick and I made a road trip out of the event.
Homestead-Miami is a Speedway so we were a bit worried of being forced to make a left turn only on the oval, but luckily there is a world class track
inside the oval. Unfortunately, seeing the high bends on the oval itself I really wished we would have used more of it. Nevertheless, the inner track was
loads of fun! Not nearly as fast as Road America but nonetheless impressive. The speeds didn't exceed 120mph even with the instructor driving, however
this time around they tended to do more sideway driving with the tires smoking rather than speeding around.
We lucked out again with a fairly low turnout, and got plenty of wheel time behind each vehicle including the new Caliber. I even won second place in
autocross competition and ended up in the final four during drag racing. The Vipers were extremely fun and we got three attemps at them, where I almost
spun the convertible by pushing it into the corner too fast.
I can hardly wait for Laguna Seca in California next year... stay tuned!
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