After graduating fourth
in my class from college in 1994 (I have a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Management and Human
Resources), I decided that I should reward myself with
a new car purchase. I searched around for what type of American car to buy,
and as soon as I saw the television commercial of the little white Neon
saying “Hi”, I was sold! That was the car for me. They were in short supply
so I had to do some searching and found a Black Plymouth Neon Sport on the
lot, ready for me to take home. It was love at first sight.
When Plymouth/Dodge
redesigned the car in 1999 for the 2000 model year, I decided it was time
for a new Plymouth Neon LX in Flame Red. After I purchased the 2000 Neon,
there were rumors circulating of a supercharged Neon with 180 HP. I knew
that once the car was introduced I would have to buy it! Early in 2003,
much to my surprise, the car ended up to be a turbocharged 215HP/245TQ (at
the wheels after my dyno testing) pocket rocket!
I purchased my
2003 Flame Red SRT-4 on April 2nd, 2003 and have never had this
much fun driving a car! The car gets constant attention on the street; it’s not
uncommon to have pedestrians point and yell out, “SRT-4!” as I zoom by.
After a 3,000 mile
break-in period, I took the car to New England Dragway for the first time.
Since I was brand new to racing, I had to completely learn how to race the
car (that’s what knowledgeable boyfriends are for!). Nivo was in the car
with me that first night at the track coaching me on how to launch and when
to shift. My first 13 second run was less than a month later on May
21, 2003 at Lebanon Valley Dragway, which was 13.91@101.10 mph. My first 12
second run was on September 10, 2003, which was 12.94@110.67 mph. My best
race to date was a 12.65@109.13 mph run against a 1992 Viper, which
consequently ran a 12.981@109.68 mph, which was his first 12 second run ever. That was the most exciting race of my life!
With over 250 time slips so far to my credit at the track, reliability has proven not to be an
issue with this car. Plus, in this time I have over 66k miles on the car and there
have been no serious problems with it at all.
I have never been so
satisfied with a purchase as when I got my Dodge SRT-4. I’ve become a
bit of a role model at my local track and now on the internet with videos of
my runs being spread to a variety of car forums. I actually have
people come up to me in stores and at the track and call me SRTGURL (my
nickname on srtforums.com, neons.org, and turbododge.com) to tell me that
they’ve seen all my videos!
The plan for is to make
my little daily driver a low 11 second car. After many obstacles I had
to overcome the 2009 racing
season promises to be really exciting. So look for the Flame Red SRT-4 with the
SRTGRL license plates in 2009!
Srtgurl
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