When I arrived, John told us that we would not be able to use the big track because GM had rented it and the team was testing a brand new Corvette C5-R. I had to go over for a look. Anyone would. Tere it was, looking mean and menacing, hunkered down, clad in its black carbon fibre business suit. John Rice, the team manager, told me it was there for some track time with Ron Fellows, and that it was indeed right out of the box with only some white paint on the front and doors.
Te C5-R possessed some inter-
esting features which surely made it a worthy successor to the Grand Sport of 1963. What is interesting about this C5-R is the production Corvette provides the platform for the Corvette Ron Fellows and com- pany pit against the Dodge Boys and their fiercesome Vipers. When GM Racing engineers began the process of building the C5-R, they were challenged to cre- ate a GTS class car but also main- taining the integrity of the production Corvette. Te Corvette racecar does use a surprising num- ber of regular production compo- nents. For example, the front and rear chassis cradles are machined to production specs; the stock hydro- formed frame siderails are used as a base for the roll cage; the power steering pump, steering rack, and upper and lower front control arms are all production items, as are the rear lower control arms. Te rules allow you to change the suspension, and the upper and lower control arms of the Corvette I saw at Mo- sport are of fabricated steel, not some forged aluminum, as steel is the easiest to fabricate. Te car uses Penske shocks all round.Te body was loosely based on the production car’s CAD data but still uses the production windshield, tail lights and marker lights. On the engine side, unique blocks are cast on the production engine casting line and the alternator and water pump are off the shelf
items.According to Doug Fehan, another engineer on the Corvette team, the roll cage also stiffens the car in its entirety: “We plug into the computer everything we’re doing and it tells us what we’re going to get. It understands what we’re doing.” One bit of infor-
mation Doug gave me was the Corvette does not have an ABS system onboard, as it did not translate into an advantage when weighed against the extra weight of the system.Te engine is a full seven-litres in displacement. Doug told me that figure was reached in an aluminum block with a slight overbore and a longer stroke. Te heads are four- bolt instead of five because that’s what the production en- gine has and the orders were not to build a “Corvette on steroids,” but rather to maintain the integrity of the production Corvette. Te con- cept is to develop a head and intake for the seven-liter engine for the best fuel mixture.Te transmission for this successor to the Grand Sport is a Hewland Super ST and it is also used in the TransAm race
cars.Top speed? Such a question is more than meaningless to the engi- neers and other people working on the Corvette C5-R project, as they can tailor a top speed for whatever track the car is laying down rubber at. Nonetheless, a top speed on the far side of 200 mph would not be too far out of line, with a 0-60 mph of around 3-4
seconds.It is easy to see that the rich heritage of the Corvette is equal to that of many other manufacturers of high per- formance automobiles and is supe- rior to many. Zora Arkus Duntov has not been with us for a number of years now, but he must think, “YES!!!” when- ever he gets word, wherever he is, when the, news of the latest Corvette victories are filtered up to him. Corvette fans can rejoice in the victory and know there are still many more to come.
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