Viper Nation

  Billy Barker Wants His Own Viper    Ted Hlokoff From 900hp Supercars to 1 horsepower wagons; 20 children escorting the RCMP Safety Bear and a Serged out Officer; Walking, driving and cycling clowns; some antique and some new cars; a Regency Longhorn Ram pickup towing a 20’ Duck – the streets were crowded in Quesnel for Billy Barker Days.   Held on July 15-18th this year Billy Barker Days is a celebration named after one of the richest gold mines in North America.  [...]

                        Langley Cruise-In, 2011                                        One of the largest car shows in the Pacific Northwest is the BC. Langley Cruise-In.    As many as 250,000 people have wandered through this Charity Car Show donating money to help Hospital and Children’s Charities. Sept 9th was the date of the NEW Langley Cruise-In Outdoor Car Show.  There were about 1500 cars and 150,000 people in attendance.  Crowded and hot were apt descriptions of the 2011 show.     I [...]

                                 World’s Fastest Road Rally  2011                                                                                                                                                          - the SSCC     The World’s Fastest Open Road Rally is a high speed, 90 mile road rally held in the high desert of Nevada.  Always being addicted to high performance and adrenaline rushes, I added this Rally to my “things to do before I Die” list and now was the time.  I’d prepaid my entry fees, and arranged for another Viper owner to be my navigator.   Before the 2011 Langley Cruise-In, HID/High [...]

  Are You Feeling Lucky?   Ted Hlokoff Doug Roots was feeling lucky.  He was thinking, ‘Third time’s a charm.’  He’d lost his two previous attempts to beat my Dodge Charger to the finish line.  Going from 302 to 355 cubic inches that was only a few car lengths behind, Doug must have thought that a stoker (383ci) small block was the ticket?   My Charger was 440 cubic inches so I wasn’t worried much.  Unfortunately, for Doug, I was [...]

  Those Damn GMs   Ted Hlokoff The Camaro lifted as it took off.  My 12.5 x 26” tries started smoking and my 72 Charger drifted sideways.  I managed to keep my car driving towards the finish line even though I was 45 degrees from straight.  The Z28 had wrinkle slicks and I was already looking at his taillights!  Finally I got some traction in second gear (with a 3 speed automatic) and started to catch the Camaro.  Shifting into [...]

  Viper Holiday at Casa Ted’s   Screaming down the highway in our machines our aerodynamics were compromised, I was sure, by the layers of dead bodies smashed to the front of our Vipers.  At speed our Vipers crashed through clouds of blood sucking mosquitoes, the scourge of the wild.    Terri and Trevor Cameron were good ‘Viper’ friends.  They were finally going to drive the 800 miles from New Serepta, Alberta to Nimpo Lake, BC for a visit.  We [...]

                                                         Father’s Day/Supercar Sunday                                            -         Ted Hokoff   Sometimes Father’s Day is for Dads to celebrate the children. Like Sunday (June 19th), it was time for us “Viper Dad’s” to enjoy ourselves while donating our time and money to help Children’s and Hospital Charities.    Many large Automotive car shows are for various Charities.  This show was for a half dozen charities with the main benefactors being the Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and the local Hospital as well. [...]

Vipers, Old West or Bavarian?                                                                                                                                 - Ted Hlokoff Driving a Viper for hours and hours can transport the people inside to the Old West of the 1800s, or even Bavaria of that time … or maybe the Viper just transports the occupants to modern Tourist Villages that look like the 1800s? May was the first trip out for my Roe supercharged 2001 Viper GTS since the snows of winter.  Heavily modified for both competition and comfort, my co-driver (Trevor [...]

]  My 750hp supercharged   Dodge Viper competing ‘heads up’ with everything from a new model Porsche GT3 RS through WRXs to a Honda Fit may not seem fair but, in a TSD/Time Speed & Distance Rally horsepower doesn’t help … or does it? A TSD is more about driving skills and understanding route instructions than a fast race. 2 drivers are required for this type of competition, one to drive the car and one to figure out TSD and relay instructions. The [...]

  Top Speed Challenge          As the two million dollar Ferrari Enzo shifted into second and third gears it was pulling away from the fighter jet CF-18 of the Canadian Air Force.  The Jet had better get a move on if it was going to be in front of the Enzo when its wheels lifted off the Tarmac.        Working with Lt. Col. R. Carter, Zahir Rana of ZR Auto (www.zrauto.com) had spent a lot of money, time [...]

Mission Father’s Day Car Show ‘08 Ted Hlokoff That’s not a Black Cherry ‘vette, is it?  Reading the signboard the car was a 1963 ‘vette with ’99 C5 chassis, driveline, interior and doors.  Perfectly blended together and although beautiful, unrecognizable as a Corvette to most modern younger people.  Parked in an unobtrusive spot in the middle of a Park meadow, surrounded by hundreds of equally expensive custom builds was where I found this Washington owner’s representation of the perfect vette. [...]

    Staring Into the Face of Death             Ted Hlokoff         The Grille of the Freightliner filled the passenger side window, framing Deana’s face. Spinning out at 60mph we slid down the wrong side of the highway towards a head-on collision with a Freightliner pulling a loaded 50’ trailer.       Deana and I had flown to Chicago’s O’hare Airport and driven as far as Georgia shopping for the ‘perfect’ Viper GTS.  Not just a Viper GTS, but a Roe Racing [...]

Your Attitude:  Winner or Loser By Ted Hlokoff   Sometimes the smallest things make the difference between winners and losers. During the summer of 1982 while I was enjoying the glory of a ten year winning streak Street-racing in the Vancouver, B.C. area, but I may have met my ‘match.’ I was racing a successful combination of a 440 engine in a lightened 1972 Charger SE.  Without the money required to build an extremely fast engine, I’d learned how to [...]

  Winterize Your Musclecar by Ted Hlokoff       How do you winterize your Musclecar?  Park it in the garage, or put on the vinyl bra and ice radials?   For many years I’ve hunted for a ‘real’ Canadian Musclecar that doesn’t need to go in the garage during the winter.  During the eighties I lived in the Fraser Valley and occasionally got to drive my Pro-Streeter on those few days when the sun was shining and the temperature was [...]

 Viper Owner’s Invitational 11    by Ted Hlokoff             This year more than 330 Dodge Vipers and about 800 Viper people attended Salt Lake City for the Viper Owner’s Invitational 11.  Included was a Viper ACRX and World Challenge event on Sunday at Miller Motorsport Park.  MMP is considered by racers to be the premier road course in North America.   I had flown instead of driven to the VOI because of a natural Disaster at home.  [...]

Kelowna Wine, Dine and AutoX 2010 by Ted Hlokoff     There are many Viper owners that wait all year for the annual Kelowna Wine Tour.  This year the event included an AutoX event with many invitations sent out to various Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, Vette and Turbo Dodge owners to “come out and play”.  “Spanking” your friends and other Viper owners is fun, but not comparable to smacking down on a modified Porsche … even if you’ve got a stock [...]

Hell’s Gate and Back, in BC by Ted Hlokoff     Although it was a hot summer and many of BC’s forests were burning, Deana and I decided that it was time for a holiday … to Hell’s Gate.  With a Forest Fire burning only 29 miles from our business, Anahim Lake Trading, and a road block at the beginning of Highway 20 telling Tourists not to drive west meant that business was slow.  With red sunsets every night and a [...]

Revelstoke Mountain Rally by Ted Hlokoff Supercharged madness is sliding up a skinny two lane switch-backed mountain road, and it only took about 15 min for 13 Vipers to slide to the top of Revelstoke Mountain, BC.   My wife Deana and I own and operate Anahim Lake Trading General Store.   I received an email notifying us that the Viper Club was meeting for a weekend Mountain Climb in Revelstoke, BC.  I knew that it was time to try out my new [...]

Kelowna Wine Tour, 2009  by Ted Hlokoff   Twisty roads, supercars, sunshine and some of the finest wines in the world came together on August 14th weekend in Kelowna during 2009.  25 of the World’s fastest cars thundered down the highways of the Okanagan Valley for the second consecutive year.  This year the focus was to travel to several of the World Premier Wineries to test their products, the ‘fruits’ of their labors, so to speak.  The drivers noticeably abstained [...]

Need A Mechanic – Call A Lawyer   by Ted Hlokoff       I started my trip to Surrey with a bad feeling that something was wrong with my car.  During a second stop to check over my Stealth I noticed that the insides of both back tires showed the cords.  I turned around and started driving the 150kms home.   Bummer, only 18,000kms on my $430 each Toyo Proxies and they’re worn out.  After switching the rear tires [...]