Episode 1As Chevrolet Corvette Racing team heads into its first full season of competition in the American Le Mans Series GT2 class, the first full episode of a new General Motors video series chronicling their journey has been posted on YouTube. The 12-part series will follow the team as it gets ready for the nine race series as well as the annual June treck to Le Mans for the 24 Hours.
Episode one begins with a look back at where 2009 left off. On the final corner of the final lap of the Laguna Seca race last October, Jan Magnussen slammed into a retaining wall with a 57 g impact after making contact with one of the Flying Lizards Porsches.
As soon as the cars returned to the team's Wixom, MI shop, the crew set about getting ready for 2010 including preparing for the all-new 5.5-liter V8. First, though, they had to rebuild the #3 C6.R. Check out the first episode of the series.
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"As long as we stay on the track, don't run into anybody and the pit stops are good..." were the famous last words of Dave Binks, Corvette Racing crew chief. He spoke these words on the afternoon of Friday, March 19 following qualifying for this year's 12 Hours of Sebring. Some 24 hours later, they turned out to be a bit too prophetic, and not in a good way.
The second episode of the Corvette Racing Series takes a look back at a less-than-successful outing for the C6.Rs at the American Le Mans Series opening round. The two Corvettes actually ended up running into each other in the pitlane and spent extended periods getting repaired.
As program manager Doug Fehan closes out with, the team now has to go back to the shop, looks at what they did wrong and learn so that it doesn't happen again. Now on to Long Beach.
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Corvette Racing has just released the next (and third) installment of its 12-part video series, this time examining how race technology makes its way to the street. In particular, the latest video highlights the new Z06 Carbon edition, which gets plenty of light-weight carbon fiber add-ons to help it shave off weight and run a quicker lap time – by as much as 3 seconds a lap on a track like Laguna Seca.
The “Track to Street” philosophy is even more important in 2010, considering the new GT class Corvette race cars are now significantly more like the street cars than in the past.
Check out the video below and we’ll be sure to bring you the next update in the series, as we hope to learn more about the new 5.5-liter V8 race engine and its street-car application.
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