This is not merely a mark left on my memory. Instead, it was branded, with all the hissing and the smoke that come with that, and I can let the film play in my head at any given moment. It was 1999, my first big assignment as a rookie journalist, commissioned to cover the FIA GT round in Zolder, Belgium. Eager not to miss a moment, I was walking towards the first corner as free practice was just getting underway. First the ground felt like it was trembling. Then a deep bass rumble got hold of my chest and started churning my insides. And finally a Chrysler Viper bellowed its way past, spitting flames from its side-exit exhaust on the downshift. I was no longer walking. I was stunned. The Viper left an imprint no other race car has managed since, and there are some very serious cars vying for attention there.
Of course, this moment flashes into my mind as Florent Moulin thunders past in the red-and-white number 92 Dodge Viper, a car largely untouched since its racing career ended, including the 2000 Daytona 24 Hours. ‘You’re up next. Be ready,’ he’d told me. No, I’m not nervous at all. Not even a little bit. That’s the Viper’s V10 making me shake, it’s not me trembling.
‘THE VIPER IS basically a modern Cobra,’ says Moulin, as we chat away from the car. The Frenchman is the owner of Luxembourg-based race specialist Art & Revs and an authority on racing Vipers. Moulin himself is French. ‘I grew up in the same town as Alain Prost, Saint Chamond. He was our hero. As a young boy, I spent all my pocket money on car magazines to learn everything about the Viper. In 2007
