Le Mans Viper driver Tommy Kendall summed up the SRT Viper TA perfectly in two sentences: “The best thing about this car is that it will do exactly what you tell it to do. And the worst thing about this car is that it will do exactly what you tell it.” He’s not kidding. Turn it too quickly, or get too deep into the 8.4-liter V-10 in the middle of a corner—in just about any gear—and the rear end will break loose, putting up a serious fight against the driver’s control of the beast. This track-focused model is obedient, but it demands deference. It’s the automotive equivalent of a circus tiger; one wrong move and you’re going to be in a world of hurt.
A TA—it stands for “Track Attack,” so you can get your mind out of the gutter—starts life as a base Viper and gets a host of alterations made with a single focus: lowering lap times. These include Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires, two small carbon-fiber splitters with a replaceable wear strip, new damper tuning, 20-percent-stiffer springs, a 35-percent-stiffer front anti-roll bar, a 31-percent-stiffer rear anti-roll bar, a high camber alignment, reworked brake rotors and pads, and a carbon-fiber engine-bay brace and rear spoiler. Orange stitching on the cloth interior doesn’t make you any faster; it just feels that way. The engine, the gearbox, and the shifter are the same as those found in base cars.
Get Down with the Downforce
For those who have made such changes to personal cars, that list might sound a little skimpy, considering the TA commands a $16,000 premium over the $104,480 base car, but the changes are certainly quantifiable. For example, those little splitters and the spoiler help produce a claimed 460 pounds of downforce at 150 mph. Compared with the base car’s 75 pounds at 150 mph, the additional downward push is not only significant but also advantageous on a racetrack. The only downside to the extra downforce is its attendant increase in drag, which means the TA tops out at 193 mph, SRT says, 13 mph lower than the base Viper.
The aggressive alignment, which we’re told is the maximum camber the stock suspension would allow, certainly helps midcorner grip, but it also delivers whip-crack turn-in and reduced tire wear over extended lapping. Reaching the grip limit, however, requires a tender touch. We heeded Kendall’s words as we gently explored the car’s limits at California’s intimidating Willow Springs International Raceway. Every lap, we braked later, entered corners faster, and built speed through the big track’s huge, fast sweepers. The key to mastering something as raw as the Viper TA is to build steadily on prior laps rather than try to lop off huge chunks of time.
Helping our initial comfort level is the fact that the latest Viper includes a multiple-mode stability-control program. It’s a major tool in building up to the limit. Sport mode allows a small amount of slip, each brake caliper working to maintain the correct path, and the engine might automatically reduce torque if traction is lost. Track mode gets rid of the torque-limiting feature and increases the allowable slip angles, so much so that the best possible lap with the stability control off might be only 0.1 second quicker. Track mode almost certainly delivers more consistent times, although we’ll have to wait for our next installment of Lightning Lap to confirm that statement. SRT has promised we’ll have a TA on hand.
The changes to the brakes are somewhat subtle in both feel and hardware. The former remains strong in initial bite and pressure buildup in the pedal. The TA has the same brake calipers as do other Vipers. As a refresher, the base car employs solid rotors, and the GTS model uses a two-piece design. TAs are fitted with two-piece units, too, but their swept area is larger by 13.5 percent. This means larger brake pads are used, which are good for fade resistance and wear in a track environment.
