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| Chevrolet Corvette C5-R |
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Page 1 of 1  Corvettes had been successfully raced from the 1950s but always with limited factory support. That changed during the 1990s, when Doug Fehan convinced General Motors to create Corvette Racing together with specialists Pratt & Miller. The first fruit of their labour was the Corvette C5-R competition car that was campaigned extensively on both sides of the Atlantic.Built to comply with the GTS and later GT1 regulations, the competition cars were based on the production road car. Key components like the chassis had to be carried over. There nevertheless was considerable freedom in the regulations to modify and improve where needed. With its separate chassis and body, the Corvette turned out to be the ideal platform for a potent GT racer. While the control arms were carried over from the production Corvette, the C5-R did feature conventional coil springs in place of the composite leaf springs. Tuned by Katech, the small-block V8 was enlarged to seven litres and converted to dry-sump. With compression raised to 12.5:1, the all-aluminium V8 produced 610 bhp while breathing through the mandatory restrictors. Initially, the C5-R was fitted with a five-speed manual. From 2001, a six-speed was used and in its final iteration, the Corvette racer boasted an XTrac-sourced sequential gearbox. This version also featured air conditioning to keep the temperatures in the cockpit bearable. The C5-R was clothed in a carbon-fibre composite body that followed the silhouette of the C5 Corvette lines. Developed in great secrecy during 1997 and 1998, the Corvette C5-R debuted at the 1999 Daytona 24 Hours. Going up against the well honed Vipers, the Corvettes struggled during the first season but became regular class winners as the program progressed. In 2000, the C5-R was the first works car raced by General Motors at Le Mans and in 2001, the C5-R won the Daytona 24 Hours outright. Later in 2001, the C5-R also won the GTS class at Le Mans. In the hands of the works team, the C5-R would score another class win at Le Mans and dominate its category in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). The surplus works cars were also sold on to privateers, who raced the car with considerable success in national and international series like the FIA GT Championship. In 2005, the C5-R was superseded by the next generation Corvette C6.R after eleven examples had been built. Of these all but one were raced by the works team. That chassis was sold directly to the Belgian Selleslagh Racing Team. Hugely successful on the race track, the C5-R also established Corvette Racing as a dominant GT team, scoring victories to this day. Page 1 of 1 |
| Article | Image gallery (107) | Chassis (2) | Specifications | User Comments (1) |
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