{"id":25651,"date":"2020-07-07T12:16:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T16:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=25651"},"modified":"2020-07-07T12:16:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T16:16:03","slug":"after-shutdown-mid-engine-corvette-celebrates-july-4-with-first-race-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/after-shutdown-mid-engine-corvette-celebrates-july-4-with-first-race-win","title":{"rendered":"After shutdown, mid-engine Corvette celebrates July 4 with first race win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/07\/PDTN\/41f759eb-5aa2-4f2b-b57d-b6e3b6aea3d7-corvette_daytona3-winner.jpg?width=520&amp;height=390&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"The winner. The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R driven by Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor took home the mid-engine 'Vette's first victory at Daytone July 4.\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div><p><span class=\"js-caption\">The winner. The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R driven by Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor took home the mid-engine &#8216;Vette&#8217;s first victory at Daytone July 4.<\/span><span class=\"credit gallery-viewport-credit\">\u00a0Richard Prince, Richard Prince for Corvette Racing<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-2 p-text\">Piloted by Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, the No. 3 Corvette C8.R race car was the first GTLM-class car to take\u00a0the checkered flag at the Daytona 240 Saturday night as the Weathertech IMSA Sportscar series returned to the track after being sidelined for months by the coronavirus. The C8.R made its racing debut in January at the Rolex Daytona 24-Hour race before COVID-19 concerns temporarily shut down the race season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Corvette&#8217;s race team, New Hudson-based Pratt &amp; Miller, had just a\u00a0month to prepare the car after engineers and crew returned June 4 from the coronavirus lockdown. Working at a breakneck pace between their Michigan shop and a North Carolina simulator, the team hit the track for the first time on July 3, just 24 hours before Saturday night&#8217;s green flag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The victory was all the sweeter because Corvette nipped its Porsche nemesis at the finish by just two seconds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;Knowing the cars were just sitting there\u00a0idle\u00a0was tough for everybody, but we had four\u00a0weeks to get everything done,&#8221; said Pratt &amp; Miller team manager Ben Johnson. &#8220;IMSA had a (track) testing ban through all of June (because they) understandably want to continue\u00a0to protect everyone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-S17dhD0QXm4\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"single-photo float\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/5c5154f4-d2da-42b7-91b9-57f96d6a8bc1-corvette_daytona-checker.jpg?width=180&amp;height=240&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R takes the checkered flag July 4 to win the IMSA Weathtech GTLM class at Daytona.\" width=\"180\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/5c5154f4-d2da-42b7-91b9-57f96d6a8bc1-corvette_daytona-checker.jpg\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/5c5154f4-d2da-42b7-91b9-57f96d6a8bc1-corvette_daytona-checker.jpg\" \/>The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R takes the checkered flag July 4 to win the IMSA Weathtech GTLM class at Daytona.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Richard Prince, Richard Prince for Corvette Racing)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The C8.R is the racing version of the 2020 Corvette C8 \u2014\u00a0the first Corvette in the badge\u2019s 60-year history to put the engine behind the driver\u00a0\u2014 that went into production this spring. Offered in coupe\u00a0and convertible models, the C8 has been wildly popular with orders for the 2020 model sold out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The Corvette crossed the finish line in front of some 5,000 fans as Daytona offered limited ticket sales for the event to Florida residents. The race was broadcast on NBCSN.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;This win is twice as special for Chevrolet, as Corvette Racing has now achieved 100 victories in IMSA competition,\u201d said Chevy motorsports chief Jim Campbell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The &#8216;Vettes dominated qualifying, starting the race 1-2 on the front\u00a0row. But tricky weather conditions led to a variety of race strategies. The pole-sitting, silver No. 4 car led with just an hour to go, but ultimately dropped to 5th at the finish. Its No. 3 sister car played a perfect strategy and emerged from its last pit stop right behind the leading Porsche.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Garcia made the winning pass with 31 minutes left \u2014 setting the race&#8217;s fastest GTLM lap of\u00a0in the process \u2014 and held off Porsche for the win. A Mazda in IMSA&#8217;s prototype class was the outright race winner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;It is amazing,\u201d said Garcia\u2019s co-driver Taylor who raced a Cadillac prototypes in the IMSA series from 2014-17. \u201cI think the off time gave the Corvette Racing guys some decent time to make some headway with our new C8.R. Our fuel mileage, engine and drivability at the beginning of the race was much better than the first race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Key to development during that time off was two driver simulator tests conducted on big\u00a0North Carolina-based rigs in June. With engineers feeding in\u00a0data remotely, the simulators tests\u00a0enabled drivers to virtually test\u00a0changes that had been made to the cars in New Hudson.<\/p>\n<div id=\"module-position-S17dhD0nKYc\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\">\n<aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><div align=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/17e95c44-17cd-447a-b9e7-87a9970d7c9f-corvette_taylor-garcia.jpg?width=540&amp;height=&amp;fit=bounds&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Jordan Taylor, left, and Anthony Garcia show off their hardware after the C8.R's first win.\" width=\"540\" data-mycapture-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/17e95c44-17cd-447a-b9e7-87a9970d7c9f-corvette_taylor-garcia.jpg\" data-mycapture-sm-src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/07\/06\/PDTN\/17e95c44-17cd-447a-b9e7-87a9970d7c9f-corvette_taylor-garcia.jpg\" \/>Jordan Taylor, left, and Anthony Garcia show off their hardware after the C8.R&#8217;s first win.\u00a0<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Richard Prince, Richard Prince for Corvette Racing)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/aside>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"p-text\">&#8220;After the Rolex 24,\u00a0we really came out with a full notebook of things we wanted\u00a0to work on and investigate,&#8221; said Pratt &amp; Miller&#8217;s Johnson.\u00a0&#8220;We\u00a0started on that and (then) were shut\u00a0down.\u00a0So our main focus from engineering perspective were the simulator events. They were a\u00a0big step forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">Still, the drivers wouldn&#8217;t be sure of how the cars performed\u00a0until\u00a0the heat of battle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The C8.R race car has been integral in development of the production,\u00a0$59,995 C8. The two cars share more parts than any previous generation of Corvette\u00a0\u2014 including a high-revving,\u00a05.5-liter, flat-plane crank V-8 that will debut in high-performance\u00a0Z06, ZR1 and Zora versions of the Corvette in years to come.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">While the race engine is limited to 500 horsepower by IMSA regulations, the production model could produce as much as 1,000 horsepower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The Corvette C8.R competes alongside some of the world\u2019s most notable performance brands \u2014 Porsche, BMW, Ferrari \u2014 in the GT series all over the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The winner. The #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R driven by Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor took home the mid-engine &#8216;Vette&#8217;s first victory at Daytone July 4.\u00a0Richard Prince, Richard Prince for Corvette Racing Piloted by Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, the No. 3 Corvette C8.R race car was the first GTLM-class car to take\u00a0the checkered flag at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25652,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25651\/revisions\/25652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}