The car is one of 32 1996 DiabloSVRs built by the factory for the supertrophy series.
It was the only american entry running in the series, therefore the paintscheme. The car was run by Ron Attapatu who resides somewhere in Florida.
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After purchasing the car in 2002 I went through it in preperations for the One Lap of America 2003.
I drove a '95 VT in 2002 and finished 10th overall out of a 90 car field. The car was featured in Car and Driver August '02 showing the car sideways on a
dirt oval in Tulsa Oklahoma. Probably a first in the world. There is a funny video on www.carvette.com Click on Fun Stuff, then click on Videos, then
on the thumbnail showing the car.
Back to the SVR. We were very hopeful of finishing way up frt. in '03. The car had great potential even though competitors would bring cars with 600, 700
and even 800hp. The Diablos aren't known for their handling.
They feel great as a streetcar but on the track you realize that they are nothing but a "badass streetcar". The SVR is a handful on racingslicks but the whole
event is driven on streettires making it even more daring. It was like driving a rallycar coming out of highspeedturns sideways.
My codriver Mike Appleby a client of mine was very generous in helping me financially with the event so I invited him to come along. He did.
He is 6'3" and about 235lbs. At the start at Watkins Glen we came to realize that he could not get into the car because of the rollcage and the racing seat
making it very tight. We decided to remove the crossbar running along the driver's door and that cured the problem at hand but it created another as we
would soon find out.
I was out at the Glen for my warmup lap. On my first hotlap as I was coming down into The Boot at over 100mph, braking hard for a lefthander the car
instantly snapped out from under me and all attempts to bring it back failed putting me into a tirewall.
The car was hurt and I limped back to the pits making this run a DNF. Out of 84 cars and 7 others that DNFd it put me and those others in 77th
position after the first run. What a great start.
We patched the car so we wouldn't have to pack it up and go home and when I went to get into the car I realized what happened on the last run.
The brakebias adjustment lever that sticks up between the driver's seat and the doorsill was pushed all the way to the rear.
When we removed the rollbar we also removed the barrier that protected the lever from accidental tampering. By getting in and out of the car without
the bar we had pushed the lever down and changed brakes to all rear causing the rear wheels to lock under braking especially going
downhill where the rear gets light anyway.
My second run was a 7th place with the alignment severely out and after a crude tapemeasure alignment I continued on for the rest of the event,
eventually working my way back up to ninth overall into a trophy spot.
In the meantime the car is all back together. We have changed the frt to a 6.0 look since I needed headlights for the One Lap to make the cars streetable.
We also did away with the lower wings and farings at the rear of the car and fabricated new cornerpieces to clean up the look, more like a GTR.
The car features Kinesis wheels that were custommade.
All the prepwork was done by my shop " European Road and Racing".
BTW, the car is race#24 and the VIN is TLA12589, and it is currently offered for sale, priced at US $ 145,000 OBO, please feel free to contact
Karl H. Troy by visiting his website : European Road and Racing
Copywrite : Karl H. Troy
European Road and Racing
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