A year after propelling Kuno Wittmer to the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar GTLM championship, the Viper is very much alive, and poised to be a top contender in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

When the factory program was cancelled after capturing the GTLM title, Ben Keating’s Viper Exchange teamed up with Bill Riley and Riley Motorsports/TI Automotive to take advantage of the key people in the former factory program and the proven performance of the SRT Viper GTS-R cars.

Campaigning in the TUDOR Championship GT Daytona (GTD) class, Keating and co-drivers Dominik Farnbacher, Al Carter and Wittmer brought the Viper home as the class winner at the 2015 season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona.

At Le Mans, the team is competing in the GTE Am class which, like GTD, uses a driver rating system that requires a combination of professional and amateur drivers for each car. Riley and Keating have shuffled the driver lineup to include European ace Jeroen Bleekemolen and Marc Miller from Grand Rapids, Mich.

In GTD, all entries are required run the same tire – but at Le Mans, a choice of tire brands is permitted. Consequently the Riley team has switched to Michelin tires, the choice of 13 of the 14 GTE Am entries, for the demanding 24-hour sports car race.

After qualifying seventh in Wednesday’s qualifying session, Bleekmolen put the big V10 fourth in the GTE Am category when qualifying concluded on Thursday night. Riley – a pure racer who doesn’t settle for top tens, top fives, or even podium finishes – is optimistic about the upcoming race. Earlier this week, he said, “This is Le Mans, you win or you don’t. We don’t allow second or third place trophies on our race truck to go back to the shop.”

With that hard-nosed approach in mind, fans can expect the Riley Motorsports-TI Automotive team to be ready to roll the dice if that’s what it takes to put the Viper back on the top step of the podium.