My Brother in Law owns a late 1990's black MB SL500. Ever since I bought my G (2 years ago) he keeps asking me to race him; saying things like, I hear these are pretty fast cars; let's see what it can do against a 5 Litre German Beast and so on... However, the occasion never materialized until yesterday.

As I pull up to my Mother in Law, a few minutes later, he arrives with his SL500 and tells me that today is the day I get beat-up by a real car. As we pull-out, he burns his tires for at least 100 feet; and I'm thinking "what the F***, this car is not stock". He lives in the country side around flat farm land and he brings me to a 2 Miles Drag Strip less than 1 KM from where my Mother in law Lives (rarely any cars - nice freshly done road surface - no houses - straight line along a military exercise base).

On the first Run, I Rev upto 3.5K RPM and drop the clutch. I gain at least 1 car lenght on him as he is spinning to come out of the hole. I change gear to 2nd and see that I'm still gaining car lenghts; I miss the 3rd and go straight to 5th and the RMP dies to 3K. Althought I was ahead by over 3 car lenght, I decide to stop as he was catching me. We chat a bit about his take-off and he decides not to dump the gas (his car is and Automatic) as he is spinning too much.

On the second Run, we both get a better start. When I **** to second and then 3rd, I see that he is no competition. By the time I'm in 5th gear at 4.5K RPM, he is at least 15 car lenghts behind me. I'm thinking "this guy will never bug me again about Japaneese Cars."

We pull into me Mother in Law's driveway and get out of the cars to chat about the race and I notice that his rear right disk brake is "Blue". As it turns out, his caliper was applying pressure to the disk. This is the reason I was so much faster than him and why he was spinning so much. We laughted a bit an as he left, he said "one zero for the *** - Let try again some other day".

Question is: Should I be concerned (he tells me that his 5L develops 315 HP and 345 Lb.pi of TQ)?

 

Yes, be afraid for his car isn't stock as you say.

 

My parents both have Mercedes SL's. One is an '03 RENNTech SL500 and the other is an '05 SL65. I've had much experience with the SL500 before they did the RENNTech conversion, and I'd say it's about a low-mid 14 second car. The older SL, the R129, has the same engine (atleast the later model years), but the newer models weighs a bit more. The R129 is a bit lighter, so I'd assume that it's easily a low 14 second car. If you are stock, it'd be a good race I'm assuming. If you are modded or know how to drive, you shouldn't be worried.