2005 Dodge Ram 3500 Crew Cab 4x4 6-speed Manual on 2040-cars

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Viper fans are at the Nurburgring to reclaim production-car speed record

With the outgoing generation of the Viper, Dodge missed a fabulous opportunity to set another Nurburgring lap record. The company did it, twice, with the previous-generation Viper ACR, but never went back with the latest ACR, and it definitely won't now that the car is being discontinued. This is why a group of Viper fans began fundraising back in January to take ACRs to the 'Ring for one more shot at glory. And, right now, that group is in Germany preparing for the attempt. The team made it thanks to support from GoFundMe donors, and sponsorship from Kumho Tires and Prefix, a design and prototype company based in Michigan. They're using two Viper ACR GTS-R commemorative-edition cars, which are appropriate for competing track cars since they have the same white-with-blue-stripes color scheme as Dodge's old Viper GTS-R racecars. The cars are supplied from ViperExchange and BJ Motors and equipped with Kumho Ecsta V720 tires. According to the group's Facebook page, the team has been practicing since Wednesday, July 19. A video posted today highlighted that the only mechanical issue so far has been an overheating problem that was solved with a new thermostat. Each car is running a different suspension setup for practice - one soft, the other hard - and they'll adjust them as needed. The plan is that both cars will use the same setup on the record attempt. To claim the record without any argument will require beating the 6:45.9 time set by the Nio EP9 electric car. Right behind it is the Radical SR8LM, which is technically street-legal, but not really a street car. It set a time of 6:48. As for true street cars with gasoline engines, the target the Viper team will really want to beat is the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, which pulled off a time of 6:52. You can track the team's progress at its Facebook page. Related Video: Image Credit: Dodge Auto News Motorsports Dodge Coupe Performance Supercars dodge viper acr nio ep9

Daily Driver: 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, reviewed by Greg Migliore. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It's Greg Migliore and today I am driving a 707-horsepower Dodge Charger. That can only mean one thing: I'm driving the Hellcat. Naturally, the spotlight feature of this car is the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8. Makes 707 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque. [00:00:30] Now naturally the engine sounds great and you can hear all of those horses going out the exhaust in back, which I think the Dodge guys have tuned really well. I think it's got one of the more unique sounds in the industry. All that horsepower will do that, but they've tuned it so there's a low kind of growl, and then it burbles and it's angry [00:01:00], it's visceral. I like it. It's intoxicating. It's different than other muscle cars. It's different than European exotics. I think it sounds great. I'm driving in sport right now which allows me to use the paddle shifters. I think it sounds a little better and the shifts of the eight-speed automatic transmission are a little bit more aggressive. For such a powerful car, Dodge did a nice job of tuning it to be actually pretty drivable. I just took a corner right there and the [00:01:30] steering offers you satisfying weight to your inputs. It's a little bit of a heavier steering, especially compared to some of the earlier generation Chargers. It's sporty, but it's not crazy. The design of the Dodge Charger is a critical element. That's why a lot of people buy this car, is it gives them that muscle car heritage look. The Hellcat has some special design cues that are also functional. You've got a couple of extra air intakes up front, keeps everything cool and breathing, the air flowing through; a nice spoiler in back [00:02:00] that helps keep the aero, and the downforce keeps you on the ground. The HID projector headlights really pop, especially at night, and in back you've got the LED taillights that spread out wide across the back end of this car like some of the great Chargers of the past. This car rolls on 20-inch black wheels with a spiderweb design. I think they look good. They're kind of low-key, which I think is great.

Race Recap: Rolex 24 at Daytona was fast and feisty

Let the record show that victory at the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona went to the No. 02 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Target/Ford EcoBoost Riley DP driven by Verizon IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan and NASCAR drivers Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson. The winner did 740 laps to cover 2,634.3 miles in 24 hours and 57.667 seconds. That's a statement to this year's pace in spite of 18 cautions, two more than last year: the Michael Shank Racing Ligier got pole with a time of 1:39.194, slower than last year's pole time of 1:38.270; however, the winning car last year only did 695 laps. The fight for top honors was shaved to a four-car battle over the first third of the event. The No. 02 Ganassi car took the lead on the first lap, swapping it well into the night with the No. 01 Ganassi car, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Corvette DP, and the defending champion No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP, all of them staying within about 20 seconds of one another. The Action Express car had a fuel connector come loose and lost three laps getting towed back to the pits to have it reattached, but was back in the lead 18 hours in. The No. 01 Ganassi car dropped out with recurring clutch problems 22 hours in, retiring not long after. A race-within-the-race is where the concluding action happened, a seven minute, 30-second dash from the end of the last caution to the checkered flag. During the penultimate pit stops with an hour to go, Dixon was in second place followed Jordan Taylor in the Wayne Taylor Racing DP into the pits but beat him out, taking the lead. The Action Express car was in third. In the last pit stops of the race, Dixon gained even more time, getting a four-second advantage over Taylor. Then a full-course caution came out twenty minutes before the finish when a Prototype Challenge car hit the wall and caught fire, bunching up the field. That closed the pits, but the Wayne Taylor Racing car had to pit during that yellow because of a miscalculation of driver time. No driver can be behind the wheel for more than four hours in a six-hour period but Jordan Taylor was going to go over, so he came in to swap out for brother Ricky. That cost the team any chance of second place, since they took an additional drive-through penalty for entering closed pits. When the track went green again, Sebastien Bourdais in the Action Express car stayed all over Dixon for the final five laps but couldn't get around him.