Shaun Westbrook is like many of us. He grew up with car posters adorning his bedroom walls. Most car enthusiasts, without a second of hesitation, can tell you about the one car they pined for in their early years. A few of us have even been lucky enough to grow up and purchase that bedroom poster car.

Westbrook is one of those people. He found the 2001 Dodge Viper of his dreams. But he may have jumped the gun.

"When I arrived at the shop they had pulled the car out to the front of their lot," Westbrook told me. "It was right there waiting for me. I didn't say anything about not knowing how to drive stick, I think they just assumed I knew how. I didn't want to put the sale in jeopardy.

"They gave me the keys and showed me around the car, and then they left me alone, he said. "The first thing that happened was I couldn't start the car."

Jonathan Harper

I almost didn’t believe him when he told me the story—who buys a car like this without knowing how to drive a stick shift? But the story is true, and gets even more cringe-worthy from the moment Westbrook first tried to drive away in his newly-purchased pride and joy.

"From the YouTube videos I had watched earlier in the day I knew I had to clutch in to start the car, but apparently I didn't quite have it in all the way," he recalls. "I was embarrassed but I had to go back inside the shop and get help. The guy came back outside and told me it was working earlier, and he got in and started it right up. He told me to make sure I get the clutch in all the way to start it up. Sure, I was embarrassed, but at that point I really didn't care. I was a Viper owner."

Westbrook asked me to meet at his place so I could take the Viper out for some photographs. And, oh yeah, along the way, maybe I could offer some pointers on driving stick.

Jonathan Harper

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but this poor guy lives down a steep narrow driveway at the base of the Hollywood hills. I started to suspect Westbrook has a masochistic streak. And yes, thank you, I’d drive and he’d ride shotgun. It only took seven or eight Austin Powers-style back-and-forth inching maneuvers to get the big snake pointed up the driveway.

"Also, the gate at the top of the driveway has no motion sensor so if you stall at the top it’ll just close on the car," Westbrook informs me from the passenger seat. Cool.

Gate be damned, we made it to our rooftop photo location and I began to dig into how Westbrook ended up in this ten-cylinder pickle.

Jonathan Harper

“Growing up in Orange County, the first time I saw one was actually on my own block," Westbrook said of his first Viper encounter. "It was someone who was visiting one of the neighbors down the street, a red R/T-10, first generation. I think I was in sixth grade. It was pretty formative. The owner let me sit in it. There was no other experience like that. Just sitting in it was enough. I was obsessed."

In an inevitable millennial spin on the bedroom poster, young Westbrook soon found the Viper in the digital world. "It was on all the PC games I was playing, even before PlayStation. I played the Test Drive series; 4, 5, 6. Viper was always on the cover. The Viper was always there."

Fast forward through about 15 years of drooling over Vipers, and Westbrook was finally in a position to buy. He'd been searching eBay, Autotrader, and all the other used-car sources. But an unexpected turn of events pushed him to follow through on his daydream.

Jonathan Harper

"The real story behind this is that I'd been doing a lot of business travel, and there was a moment when I was on a plane and it looked like we were going to crash," he told me. "We were coming into LAX and the pilot came on and told us we had lost control of the landing gear. They cleared the runways and had all the firetrucks and ambulances out and everything. Everyone had a kind of an oh-shit moment, and you wonder who to text or what to text in those last few moments, when it could be the end."

The plane ended up landing safely. And you know how, after a near-death experience, people are inspired to dedicate their lives to friends or family or nature or worthy causes or living every day to the fullest? Westbrook was inspired to find his dream car.

"For me, owning a Viper was something where I figured, life's short, why not? Ironically, if you drive a Viper your life does have the potential to get even shorter. The probability of that happening is a lot higher, as I'm learning. This car is a weapon."

Jonathan Harper

After only two weeks of searching, Westbrook found the 2001 R/T-10 in red with double white stripes in Ontario, California. This is the part of his story where I interrupted to ask Westbrook if it ever occurred to him to learn how to operate a manual transmission before taking possession of a 450-hp vehicle with no traction control.

"It really never occurred to me," Westbrook replies. At that moment, and many other times in our conversations, I was impressed by how totally un-self-conscious the guy is. What he was doing—is doing—is folly. But it’s his folly, and he cheerfully owns it.

As a kid and an adult, he focused only on the coolness of the car, the way it looked, not on the actual practical aspects of driving it. "Everything I knew about the Viper was about its great design and performance," Westbrook says, "but the reality is the car is trying to kill you every time you get into it. The car is humbling."



Jonathan Harper

He knew, of course, that the Viper was manual. "But that part didn't register in my brain, like, 'Wait a minute, you've actually never driven a manual transmission.' I had only really heard about it. It really never occurred to me until I actually bought the car and actually had to go pick it up," he says.

Clearly, Westbrook suffers from a high degree of Viper tunnel vision, and it becomes more striking as he tells the story of buying the car

He watched a few YouTube videos, and decided he didn’t want to take a stick-driving friend with him to pick up the car. "I wanted it to be a surprise to my friends and family so I didn't ask anyone to come along. Once they found out it was my first time driving manual they couldn't believe it, they said I was batshit crazy. Everyone thought I was crazy. It really didn't occur to me when I was buying it though because I didn't share what I was doing."

Jonathan Harper

Westbrook, with perhaps uncharacteristic forethought and caution, decided to try to practice a little before venturing 50 miles home on California highways in rush hour.

"I inched it out of their lot," he remembers. "I didn't want to practice there. Luckily there was a big industrial neighborhood nearby so I went over there and it was pretty quiet so I did some practice. I spent about three hours just trying to get the feel for it and also trying to practice maneuvering. I was probably riding the clutch the entire time. The delivery people in the area were getting some good entertainment watching me stall this red 450-horsepower machine over and over."

He felt like the practice was helping, but he also felt pressure to get home. "It was getting dark. And I was still 50 miles from home. I had to leave before it was pitch black. I decided not to take the highway, which at the time I thought was a safer bet not knowing how to drive stick. In hindsight it probably made my life a lot more difficult having all those starts and stops and hills. I never got past second gear the entire way home."

Jonathan Harper

It was crazy, Westbrook says. It’s still crazy.

"I had no sense of knowing when to shift. The Viper has really long gearing so I was pretty much fine cruising along at 50 in second gear. I didn't feel confident shifting yet. Just starting and stopping was a big hurdle. I was very concerned about damaging the car, I didn't want to roll back on a hill and hit the car behind me."

Having skipped the highway, Westbrook was forcing himself to repeatedly do the thing he did not know how to do. Repeat practicing to develop muscle memory is one of the best way to learn a skill, but most people have a coach or a knowledgeable friend along to help out.

"I stalled quite a bit on the way back home. I didn't fully understand the concept of the engagement point. I was basically just letting the clutch out and revving it and hoping I'd get going. Lots of screeching from the tires. Coming to a stop was difficult at first too, remembering to clutch in and put the car into neutral. There was a moment though, when I was driving through Chino Hills and the sun was setting, that was the best. I was able to gun it a bit with the windows down and just hear the sound of the engine and feel the power."

To his credit, Westbrook did manage, through all the herky-jerky stalling, restarting, and tire-squealing, to limp all that coiled horsepower back to West Hollywood.

Jonathan Harper

Nearly six months since he picked up the car, Westbrook is still learning to become truly competent driving the Viper in what little free time he has from his work as an engineer.

"I've been trying to take it out early in the morning when traffic is less crazy. I've wanted to get out into some open areas like where I bought it, but just haven't had time. Instead I've been driving it through the neighborhood on Sunset or on the big wide roads in Beverly Hills. Every time I'm on the Sunset Strip I seem to get challenged immediately at a the stop lights. There's always some Ferrari or Lamborghini revving up next to me, and I'm like, I'm not even at that level, I'm just trying to shift gears here!"

I goad Westbrook a little. A car like this, with a novice driver? There must have been some close calls.

"The first oh-shit moment I had was taking a turn a little too hard with a little too much gas, like you've probably seen on YouTube, Vipers spinning out. Luckily I didn't hit anything. If you don't respect the Viper's power it will bite back. I took a step back and realized I need to respect this car more, and learn better car control."

Jonathan Harper

Knowing what he knows now, if given the opportunity to go back and learn manual on a less extreme vehicle before buying the Viper, would Westbrook have done it?

"Oh definitely," he replies. "I probably should have gotten something normal that was manual to just practice and learn the basics on. My very first time driving stick was in this Viper. It was an experience I'll never forget."

At the same time, he’s not sorry about buying this Viper when he did, and he wouldn’t discourage a similar purchase for other non-manual driving enthusiasts with some cash burning a hole in their pockets.

"I would say anything is possible. If I can drive that thing back with zero experience, and with no knowledge, then it shows it's possible," he says. "It's not smart. I could have easily wrecked the car or hurt myself. But I didn't."

Westbrook seems to have the right attitude for learning to safely exploit what the Viper has to offer, and he knows driving schools and on-track car-control clinics are a great way for him to learn the basics.

"My goal is to be able to drive the Viper to its full potential," he says. "I want to take some track schooling and learn how to really drive properly in a high performance setting. In the meantime I'm continuing to enjoy the Viper just simply because it was always my dream car. Even just seeing it in my garage makes me so happy."

Jonathan Harper

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