Friday, October 11, 2013

Viper

Wheelmen Pit (Viper) Boss
A 125-hp Formula Ford race car is everything that an SRT product isn’t. But it is a part of deciding what SRT products will be.

C/D:
 How did you get started racing?In this new series, we peek into the personal stables of the people behind our favorite cars. Russ Ruedisueli (roo-duh-SELL-ee) has been racing in Formula Vee and Formula Ford for more than 20 years and, at 54, continues to successfully compete in SCCA events. That experience cross-pollinates with his day job as the head of Chrysler’s SRT and motorsports engineering.
RR: Tom Wilkinson [now communications manager at Chevrolet] started racing out of Waterford Hills, Michigan, in a Formula Vee, and that was like my introduction to heroin. He got me out there crewing with him and then got me into the car and through driver’s school. A couple years later I moved up to Formula Fords, and that’s where I’ve kind of  landed.
C/D: Those are very different from the cars SRT sells.
RR: Yeah, they are. But the basics of making a car handle and respond so that the driver is comfortable still apply. If the driver is comfortable, you get better lap times and better race results.

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