From the moment Dodge introduced the Viper in 1992, this anomaly of a sports car was set for greatness. Viper is bold, with in-your-face looks, performance to match and little compromise. Best of all, evolution has been good to the Viper—the 2016 ACR model is one of, if not the best, road-course machine in the world. Amazingly, though, the desire for drag racers to push these snakes to quarter-mile glory burns deep within the Viper community.

And on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, a new standard for Viper performance was set when past HOT ROD Drag Week champ Jeff Lutz wheeled Shawn Beard's 1997 Viper V10 coupe to a 6.78-second pass at 211 mph, surpassing the 6.98-second run set by Sal Patel.

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Amazingly, Lutz had never so much as turned a tire in Beard's Viper before this two-day record attempt. "I'll drive anything I fit in and I felt comfortable in the Viper," said Lutz of the Jerry Haas-caged machine after his first burnout. "Shawn contacted me to go after the record, so we got the car and got it set up," Lutz stated. In his shop, located about one hour north of Pittsburg, Lutz's team dialed in the V10 to the tune of 1,788 rear-wheel-horsepower on 25-psi of boost. Lutz worked with tuner Shaun T. from California, who applied his Viper EFI magic, sending tunes via the Internet.

"We hustled out of town to beat the storm [the northeast was blanketed with three-feet of snow last week] and were in Orlando Sunday night. The first day I was trying to figure out the boost on the starting line," Lutz explained. "We made a few 60-foot runs, some 330-foot runs, and finally on Tuesday we did some half-track passes, but the front end kept coming up and I couldn't steer," he said. "We knew it was going to rain on Wednesday so we had to get it done Tuesday night. I lowered the wheelie bars, cooled it down and we went back up."

Lutz cranked up the boost to 32 psi, and with the sun falling on Orlando Speed World, he heated the tires, rolled into the beams and prepared for launch. The twin-Precision 91mm turbos spooled nicely and Lutz powered from the line with the front wheels dangling. "I launched at 4,400 rpm and it had the front wheels up in the air," Lutz told us. "It kept going straight so I shifted at 7,500 rpm, then again at 7,500, and just stayed in it. I think it set the front end down after the finish line."

Indeed, the matte Black Viper was hiked up and hauling with the front tires off the track the entire time! It crossed the stripe with a nose-up attitude and with a new Viper record of 6.78 at a staggering 211 mph.

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"It was amazing, everybody was freaking out, even the guys from the track because they knew why we were there," Lutz told us. "That's what he [Shawn] built the car for and to get it the record the first time out—on our first full pass—was just amazing. Our intention was to set two records [Lutz also tried to set the World's Quickest Street Car record with his 1969 Camaro but fell a bit short] so one out of two isn't bad."

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