{"id":31813,"date":"2019-12-02T17:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T22:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dodgegarage.com\/news-api\/?p=31813"},"modified":"2024-03-25T11:23:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:23:52","slug":"wild-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/showcase\/2019\/12\/wild-weather.html","title":{"rendered":"Wild Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fall is a sketchy time of year to drive a performance vehicle through the Rocky Mountains. The temps are creeping down toward freezing and the snow-capped mountains hint at more brutal conditions as the elevation increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall is also when the SEMA Show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the weather tends to be pretty mild\u2026warm even. Every year since 2012, with one exception, I\u2019ve driven from Detroit to Las Vegas right around Halloween weekend. The week in Vegas? Easy. It\u2019s getting there and back that provides the adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2012 was the first year I made the long drive while my wife Darla rode shotgun with me in our RAM R\/T. Outside of being lowered, the truck was stock and sitting on 20\u201d Nitto 420S summer performance tires. Needless to say, we made it to SEMA with zero issues. For the adventure home, we took a long detour stopping in to see some friends and hit a few shows in California to display my art. When we started our trek home, the Craters of the Moon National Park looked neat so we figured why not drive up through Idaho? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Almost\nimmediately after driving past the park\u2019s welcome sign it began snowing. A lot.\nI slowed down, took it easy and didn\u2019t have a problem. Then the blizzard\nstopped momentarily and I took the opportunity to put the hammer down. A\nCharger was coming in the other direction. Lights flash. Crap. I pulled off to\nthe side before he even started his u-turn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nluck would have it, this was a fortuitous incident. We told him where we were\nfrom and what we were doing and he let me off with a warning. We decided to ask\nhim about our route options from there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs this truck a 4×4?\u201d
Nope.
“Do you have winter tires?”
Nope.
“Do you have tire chains?”
Well, none of this sounded promising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOk, so this (he points to the route we weren\u2019t planning on taking) is the way to go. It\u2019s still a main highway through the mountains so there will be plenty of plow trucks on it. If you find one, just stay behind it as long as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And this is exactly what happened. Well, this is exactly what happened after I attempted to go the scenic way we\u2019d originally mapped out, only to turn back when white out conditions made distinguishing the road from the ditch quite difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\nsnowy mountain roads through Idaho into Montana made for exciting times, though\nwe did make it through unscathed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now fast forward to 2015. It\u2019s late October in Detroit, and I\u2019ve convinced Dodge to give me an SRT\u00ae<\/sup> Viper ACR Extreme Aero for the 5,000 mile round trip trek. Forget about the weather, this was a barely street legal track focused machine that was being hailed as too wild for public roads by both the media and the brand itself. Everyone thought I was nuts for this idea. Even Tim Kuniskis thought I was crazy, but I think that\u2019s a big part of why he likes me and why he gave the trip the green light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dodge was concerned about the temperatures along the route, and rightfully so. They\u2019d developed rubber for the ACR with Kumho, and the DOT approval was, in my opinion, probably like \u201chey, these are totally street legal and not at all track only tires WINK WINK NOD NOD.\u201d Kumho also says things on their site like \u201cThe Ecsta V720 ACR is not intended to be serviced, stored nor driven in near- or below-freezing temperatures, through snow or on ice\u201d and \u201cWarning: Ecsta V720 ACR radials meet DOT requirements, however they are not recommended for driving in wet conditions where standing water is present and there is the risk of hydroplaning.\u201d So, you know, not exactly all seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I picked the car up from the SRT building in Auburn Hills, a couple of the engineers gave me a walk-through of all the unique features and settings on the ACR. But it was something said almost as an afterthought, and probably just because it was a cold and rainy afternoon, that had the most impact: \u201cOh, yeah, if you cycle through the traction options here there is a rain mode,\u201d longtime Viper engineer Jeff Reese mentioned as he pointed to the controls on the steering wheel, \u201cit\u2019s actually really, really good.\u201d Later on my friend, racer, and fellow Dodge Garage writer John Hammer agreed and told me \u201ca lot of times we\u2019ll actually race in that mode if it\u2019s wet out.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unfortunately for my inner Justin Bell, it rained for the majority of the trip there, and the majority of the trip back. I couldn\u2019t believe how sure-footed the ACR was in those conditions, especially considering how comically proportioned the tires are: 295\/25R19s in the front and 355\/30R19s in the rear. The biggest wet threat ended up being to whoever followed me; the rooster tail shooting off the car\u2019s X-Wing might as well have come off a cigarette boat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rain finally let up as we made our ascent into the Rockies, but the temps steadily dropped. From the 50s, to the 40s, to freezing, to the teens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019d\nbe lying if I said this didn\u2019t make me a little nervous, but we kept an eye on\nthe tire pressure and checked the sidewalls every fuel stop which, in the ACR,\nwas every two hours or so. They seemed to hold up well, and in Las Vegas Dodge\npicked up the car from me and replaced all 4 tires, just to be safe. I thought\nthe meats looked like they handled all we threw at it pretty well, and through\nthe grapevine it sounded like the techs agreed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There may have been a few white knuckle moments, but honestly the car handled some garbage driving weather without much drama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two years ago in 2017 a \u201818 Widebody Challenger Hellcat wound up loaded down with luggage and sculptures for the SEMA excursion. Mother Nature smiled on us on the trip west with mostly dry and mild days and nights as we drove down to the Million Dollar Highway and Grand Canyon. It wasn\u2019t until the way back that fall became winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This happened in the mountains of Utah and into Wyoming, at dusk. Snow began falling. 707hp with RWD isn\u2019t ideal for any kind of winter driving, and the stock Pirelli P-Zero 305\/35ZR20s might as well have been runners off of Santa\u2019s sleigh. Darla was a bit more nervous than me, asking more than once if I\u2019d rather stop early for the night and wait the white stuff out. But, truthfully, I love the challenge. As a kid who grew up piloting full size, V8 powered, rear wheel drive vans on bald tires in Michigan, I\u2019m always up for these situations. For 3 hours straight we bombed northeast. Visibility was pretty brutal so I tried to follow semi-trucks from a distance to gauge the upcoming road based on their tail lights. Those few hours, and a few moments where I *maybe* almost buried the car in the muddy Bonneville Salt Flats, proved to be the only times where weather messed with us in \u201817.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then there was this year. We ended up driving the \u201cbackup plan\u201d to SEMA. As far as options go, it\u2019s not a bad thing to have an SRT Demon in your back pocket! Well, to a point. While the SRT Demon-specific Nitto drag radials are off the car, their replacement was another high performance summer tire. It wears 295\/40r18 Nitto 555 G2s up front, and the same tire but as a 315\/40r18 out back. I was really, REALLY, crossing my fingers hoping to luck out with the weather. It didn\u2019t take long to realize the fall skies weren\u2019t gonna do us many favors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left on Halloween night, just as it started to rain. The temps dropped from the cusp of freezing to actual freezing, and within an hour the rain became snow. I\u2019m not gonna lie, it was a bit nerve wracking, but I figured as long as the white stuff didn\u2019t accumulate we\u2019d be fine. Obviously things like black ice or snow drifts are always a concern; after many years and hundreds of thousands of miles driven, you get a feel for vehicles and how they respond to slippery situations. Little things like smooth footwork on the pedals and slight corrections to the wheel tend to be the difference between staying between the lines or winding up on the back of a flatbed. About halfway to Chicago I did the unthinkable: I put my SRT Demon into eco-mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the powered-down 500hp eco-mode the car is way less twitchy. The inputs are more gradual and the shifts are softer. The little green leaf made a noticeable and much appreciated difference. We made it to the west metro-Chicago area and stopped for the night. The hotel\u2019s parking lot was icy and there was 2-3 of snow on the surrounding grounds. We hunkered down until morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That was Thursday night. The next couple of days skipped the precipitation, but remained cold! We headed through Minnesota, North Dakota, and into Montana by Saturday afternoon. I really wanted to do route 93 from Missoula down through the Bitterroot Mountains and decided the risk was worth the experience. While we rose up in elevation and the sun started its nightly retreat, I wondered if mistakes had been made. The roads were slick with frozen patches where snow has melted down from the mountains, across the asphalt, then froze in the shadows with nowhere else to go. In some corners snow had built up and turned into slush. There wasn\u2019t much (any) traffic which made things simpler as long as I didn\u2019t slide us over the edge. I didn\u2019t, and on the backside descent our bravery…or stupidity, or whatever…was rewarded with an incredible array of mountain views at dusk. That night was spent in Salmon, Idaho, and while the temps remained in the single digits the next morning, by afternoon we were greeted by the warm, welcoming sun soaked terrain of Nevada. Outside of racing a snow front on our way back East, the SRT Demon didn\u2019t have to deal with any more crappy conditions. We made it home, safe and sound. As much as I like the idea of one upping each trip from the last, I don\u2019t mind Darla\u2019s thought: maybe next year we take something with all-wheel drive? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fall is a sketchy time of year to drive a performance vehicle through the Rocky Mountains. The temps are creeping down toward freezing and the snow-capped mountains hint at more brutal conditions as the elevation increases. Fall is also when the SEMA Show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the weather tends to be pretty mild\u2026warm even. Every year since 2012, with one exception, I\u2019ve driven from Detroit to Las Vegas right around Halloween weekend. The week in Vegas? Easy. It\u2019s getting there and back that provides the adventure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":31837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[526,605,509],"class_list":["post-31813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-showcase","tag-challenger","tag-srt","tag-viper"],"acf":[],"custom_fields":{"post_thumbnail_image":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/feature.jpg","icon_selection":"article","external_link":"","featured_article":[],"upload_background_image":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31813"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31858,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31813\/revisions\/31858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.api.dodgegarage.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}