Month: September 2011

Mid America Motorworks held their annual Corvette Funfest over the weekend and while the weather may have been a bit on the cool side, there was plenty of hot Corvette action going on at the Effingham show. Although we were unable to attend, our friends at Corvette Online were on the scene and provided nice recap of the weekend’s events.

Thousands of Corvettes make the trip annually to Effingham, Illinois for the weekend show. The theme for this year’s show was “America’s Star Spangled Corvette Party” and a patriotic parking display greeted enthusiasts as they entered the MA Motorwork’s complex. Registrations for Corvette Funfest were reported as being up by 40% over last year’s figures, which easily confirms the show’s status as the World’s largest Corvette party.

Other going-ons at Funfest included the installation tent where Corvette vendors install a myriad of Corvette parts and accessories on your ride. As you can see, the aftermarket exhaust suppliers were especially busy during the three day show.

One of the main draws is Mid America Motorwork’s founder and Chief Cheerleader Mike Yager extensive car collection. Mike took the opportunity to show off the 1957 Red/White Corvette roadster barn car which sits on the same trailer it was stored with years ago. Two new Corvettes to Mike’s collection are Black and White Alpha and Beta preproduction C5 prototype cars which will be joining the Deathrace 2000 movie car in the MY Garage Museum.

Saturday evening, Mike Yager welcomed Don Felder, former lead guitarist for The Eagles for 27 years, who performed on stage in front of a huge crowd of Corvette enthusiasts. Before taking the stage, Mike gave away an autographed guitar signed by Felder.

Corvette Funfest remains a must-attend show and for those that unable to make it to the annual gathering in southern Illinois, make sure you visit CorvetteOnline.com to see all the great photos and recaps of the weekend’s activities.

Source:
CorvetteOnline.com

Related:
Mike Yager’s 1957 Corvette Barn Find
Mike Yager’s Corvette Bible

 

Richard Stevens, who engineered and built this original copy of the 1893 Duryea, will drive the car at the vintage car show at the Springfield Museums on September 24, 2011.

Racing at Monterey is always a challenge and with the ALMS Drivers and Manufacturers Championship titles on the line, Corvette Racing needed a strong result to keep them in contention. For six hours, Corvettes battled BMW, Ferrari and Porsche on the roller coaster that is Laguna Seca raceway. Did the team succeed and force a “game seven” for the championships at Petit Le Mans? Hit the jump to see the results of the American Le Mans Series at Laguna Seca.

A Long Day in Monterey as Team Experiences Highs and Lows on Roller Coaster Road Course

MONTEREY, Calif., Sept. 17, 2011 – The six-hour American Le Mans Monterey proved to be trying day for Corvette Racing as the Compuware Corvette C6.Rs finished fifth and seventh in the GT class. While the cars showed competitive speed, keeping a handle on the roller coaster Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca circuit throughout a stint was a challenge for the Corvettes.

Jan Magnussen and Oliver Gavin finished fifth in the No. 4 Corvette C6.R, 15.9 seconds behind the winning No. 45 Porsche 911 GT3 of Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Long. The No. 62 Ferrari, third across the finish line, received a post-race penalty for avoidable contact, promoting the No. 4 Corvette from sixth to fifth in the final results. Tommy Milner and Olivier Beretta finished seventh, one lap behind the leaders, in the No. 3 Corvette C6.R.

“Looking at lap times, we had cars that were very competitive today,” said Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan. “Unfortunately we couldn’t find a setup that would allow the cars to keep the tires under them for an entire stint.”

After starting second in the GT class, Gavin held his position through the first 14 laps before he was overtaken by the No. 55 BMW. Within a few laps, he had slipped to seventh as the Corvette struggled to maintain grip on the track surface. After an early pit stop put the No. 4 Corvette out of sequence with the leaders, Gavin was back up to third shortly after the one-hour mark, only to slide back to seventh. That established the pattern of the race for the No. 4 Corvette.

“It was a very long day, and definitely not the result we were looking for,” Gavin said. “For whatever reason, today we sustained high tire wear and a drop in grip. We’ll get to the bottom of this so that we can fight for a win when we come back here next year. I definitely think it’s just a blip, since we’ve been competitive at every other event this year.”

Magnussen agreed: “At the beginning of the stint, the car was really good, but then it dropped off about halfway through, so we couldn’t really keep up the pace. When the car was good, we were right there with the leaders.”

Savvy pit strategy kept the Corvettes in contention, and Gavin was running second after four hours of racing. However, he and Magnussen couldn’t maintain their position through long runs.

Milner and Beretta had a similar plight in the No. 3 Corvette. “You always want to keep fighting because anything can happen in a race,” Milner said. “Today we weren’t the quickest car and weren’t as competitive as we would have liked to have been. The team was awesome, they made great pit stops and fast driver changes. I think we’re primed and ready for Petit Le Mans.”

“We did our best, the team did a good job on the car, but it was a shame that we lost a lap,” Beretta conceded. “It’s all part of racing. Unfortunately today it was difficult, but we have one more race coming, and the whole team will be going for another victory.”

ESPN2 will televise the ModSpace American Le Mans Monterey on Sunday, September 18, at 1 p.m. ET. Corvette Racing’s next event is the 10-hour/1,000-mile Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga., on Saturday, October 1, at 11:30 a.m. ET. Live video coverage will be available on ESPN3.com in the U.S. and americanlemans.com for international users. ABC will televise Petit Le Mans at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, October 2.

ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey GT Results (Top 10):
Pos./Car No./Drivers/Car/Laps

1. 45 Bergmeister/Long, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 236
2. 56 Mueller/Hand, BMW M3 GT, 236
3. 01 Sharp/van Overbeek, Ferrari F458 Italia, 236
4. 55 Auberlen/Werner, BMW M3 GT, 236
5. 4 Gavin/Magnussen, Corvette C6.R, 236
6. 62 Melo/Vilander, Ferrari F458 Italia, 236
7. 3 Beretta/Milner, Corvette C6.R, 235
8. 02 Brown/Cosmo, Ferrari F458 Italia, 231
9. 44 Neiman/Holzer, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 230
10. 48 Miller/Maasen, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 224

Source:
CorvetteRacing.com

Related:
Corvette Racing Qualifies Second and Eighth for Laguna Seca ALMS
Corvette Racing: Links for the ALMS at Monterey
Vote Corvette Racing for the ALMS “From the Fans” Award
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: Riding the Roller Coaster
Corvette Racing at Baltimore Grand Prix: The Science of Street Racing

 

Both carmakers jollied up to each other until a VW executive said the German carmaker had the power to “significantly influence financial and operating policy decisions” of the Japanese company.

While the C7 Corvette may still be a couple years out, rumors and speculation are already running rampant as to what it will look like and how it will be powered. Popular Mechanics magazine sent one of their writers out to the streets of Detroit during July’s Dream Cruise to search for clues regarding the next generation Corvette and he came back with some interesting tidbits of info.

According to PM writer Colin Mathews, the Woodward Dream Cruise is a target rich environment for this kind of automotive detective work. Over 40,000 cars and trucks are on parade in front of 1.5 million spectators, many of whom are employees of the suppliers, engineering firms and vendors who support the Corvette. While many gave Mathews the cold shoulder, others were more than willing to discuss what they know. Here are some interesting quotes from industry insiders he picked up along the way:

“Y1XX. Yup. That’s the platform code for the new one. From what I seen, it’s gonna have square taillights. And it ain’t gonna be a 2013, neither. Supplier tooling is ramping up for production in May, June, July of 2013. C7′s a model-year 2014 car.”

On the C6 Corvette’s instrument cluster and nav/radio unit: “That’s ancient GM technology“. She (who looks and talked like an insider) hinted the next-gen would be vastly superior.

Colin also crashed a private party filled almost entirely with young auto designers. One of the attendees claimed to have seen the C7 said the new Corvette will have “Ferrari-style quarter windows for the first time since the C2“. The young designer added “the C7 will knock the current Vette out of the water. It won’t be an old guy’s car anymore“.

Another designer which knowledge of the C7 program said that base horsepower will “approach that of today’s Z06 (505 hp) and that the Z06 power levels will climb within a stone’s throw of the radical 638-hp of today’s supercharged ZR1“.

Like many, Colin believes the new Corvette will be the first car to feature the upcoming Gen-V Chevy small block V8. That engine is rumored to have a 5.5 liter displacement and will feature an aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection and variable valve timing. Turbocharging may still be a possibility for the higher performance models as well.

As far as analyzing what was presented in the article, We find the most interesting quote to be the return of the quarter windows. As this was a design feature on the 1963-67 Corvettes, and with GM’s Ed Welburn hinting the return of the split rear window, it makes us believe the C7 Corvette’s design may indeed contain several retro design cues. The insider’s comment regarding the square taillights also gels with current Chevy designs like the Camaro and the newly redesigned 2013 Malibu, which ditched its round taillights for the square Camaro-styled versions.

What is encouraging is that Mathew’s final conclusion is in line with what we’ve been hearing – the new Corvette will see improvement on all fronts, and especially in the areas where we find deficiencies in today’s current generation. From interior quality to power and fuel economy, the C7 Corvette is poised to be vastly improved where it counts.

You can check out the full article at PopularMechanics.com.

Source:
PopularMechanics.com

Related:
Left Lane News Shows Spy Pics of C7 Corvette Mule
Motor Trend: The Truth about the C7 Corvette
GM to Invest $131 Million in Bowling Green Assembly Plant

 

Gavin Puts No. 4 Corvette C6.R on GT Front Row for Third Straight Race

MONTEREY, Calif., Sept. 16, 2011 – As the laps counted down in qualifying for Saturday’s ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey, Corvette Racing engineer Chuck Houghton radioed to driver Oliver Gavin, “A tenth of a second will put you in P2.” Gavin responded with his quickest lap of the 15-minute qualifying session, taking the No. 4 Compuware Corvette C6.R from sixth to second on the GT grid.

“As always, Chuck tells me exactly how it is,” Gavin said with a laugh. “I knew that the car had it in it. I just needed to put a lap together without any traffic or sand on the track. It all seemed to come together on that last lap.”

It was the third consecutive front-row qualifying effort by the No. 4 Corvette C6.R after Gavin’s teammate, Jan Magnussen, qualified the yellow car in the No. 2 spot at Road America and the Baltimore Grand Prix. Gavin’s ninth and final lap was his quickest, navigating the 2.238-mile course in 1:23.124 (96.925 mph). Olivier Beretta’s sixth lap in the No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R was his fastest at 1:23.566 (96.412 mph), placing him eighth in the hard-fought GT class – the gap from second to eighth was less than half a second. Joey Hand took the GT pole at 1:22.226 (97.984 mph) in the No. 56 BMW M3 GT.

“I knew by Turn 7 that it was going to be a good lap,” Gavin recalled. “I’d been losing some time in the Corkscrew because I was trying too hard and overshooting the corner. This time I backed down a little bit, got through the turn quickly, and then it was just hauling through the rest of the corners to the start-finish line.

“It’s super close with everyone except Hand’s BMW, and we’re in with a fighting chance,” the Briton added. “Six hours at Laguna Seca is a long race, and I know that Corvette Racing will make the right calls and we’ll be battling to keep ourselves in the championship.”

Gavin and Magnussen will go into the penultimate round of the ALMS second in the GT standings, 25 points behind Hand and Dirk Mueller. With 55 points available in the remaining two races, the championship is still in play.

Beretta expects the No. 3 Corvette C6.R to move to the front as the race unfolds. “With our strategy for qualifying we should look good in the race,” Beretta said. “I tried my best, and the engineers and mechanics did a good job. I’m quite happy about how the day went.”

The six-hour ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will start on Saturday, September 17, at 1:30 p.m. PT. Live video coverage will be available on ESPN3.com in the U.S. and americanlemans.com for international users. ESPN2 will televise the ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey on Sunday, September 18, at 1 p.m. ET.

ModSpace American Le Mans Series Monterey GT Qualifying (Top 10):
Pos./Car No./Drivers/Car/Time

1. 56 Mueller/Hand, BMW M3 GT, 1:22.226
2. 4 Gavin/Magnussen, Corvette C6.R, 1:23.124
3. 55 Auberlen/Werner, BMW M3 GT, 1:23.132
4. 02 Brown/Cosmo, Ferrari F458 Italia, 1:23.367
5. 45 Bergmeister/Long, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 1:23.368
6. 01 Sharp/van Overbeek, Ferrari F458 Italia, 1:232.386
7. 62 Melo/Vildander, Ferrari F458 Italia, 1:23.518
8. 3 Beretta/Milner, Corvette C6.R, 1:23.566
9. 17 Henzler/Sellers, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 1:23.758
10. 48 Miller/Maasen, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, 1:24.133

Source:
CorvetteRacing.com

Related:
Corvette Racing: Links for the ALMS at Monterey
Vote Corvette Racing for the ALMS “From the Fans” Award
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: Riding the Roller Coaster
Corvette Racing at Baltimore Grand Prix: The Science of Street Racing

 

The championship chases in four classes of the American Le Mans Series are beginning to come more into focus. There are 55 points available to winners in the final two rounds – 25 points at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and 30 at Road Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans. Corvette Racing’s Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen are chasing the #56 BWM’s Joey Hand and Dirk Muller who lead the Driver’s Championship by 25 points. Corvette is third in the running for the Manufacturer’s Championship, down 5 points to second place Porsche and 30 points behind BMW.

Event:	The 2011 ModSpace American Le Mans Monterey Presented by Patrón
Location:	Monterey, CA
Race Length:	6 Hours
Track Length:	2.238 Miles
Turns:	11

The 2011 ModSpace American Le Mans Monterey Presented by Patrón :

• Entry List
• Spotters Guide
• Track Map
• Schedule
• Live Timing
• Live timing – Mobil Devices
• American Le Mans Series Radio

American Le Mans Monterey TV/Streaming:

• ESPN3 (USA)
• ALMS.com (Outside USA)
• Justin.TV (Non-ESPN3 Subscribers)

  Live Qualifying: Friday at 6:25 PM ET to 7:30 PM ET
  Live Race: Saturday at 4:30 PM ET to 10:30 PM ET
  Replay: Sunday at 1:00 PM ET to 3:00 PM ET on ESPN 2

Pit Notes:

• Corvette Racing on Twitter
• ALMS Notes on Twitter

Discuss the race with other ALMS Fans:

• Digital Corvettes
• American Le Mans Fans
• Ten-Tenths.com

Related:
Vote Corvette Racing for the ALMS “From the Fans” Award
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: Riding the Roller Coaster
Corvette Racing at Baltimore Grand Prix: The Science of Street Racing

 

Corvette savant Mike Yager is prepping his Effingham, Illinois-based Mid America Motorworks for a celebration of an American icon.

At the Baltimore Grand Prix, Program Manager Doug Fehan provided the next installment of the Corvette Racing’s Tech Transfer segment which aired during the race. While most of the tech transfer segments follow the transfer of technology from Track to Street, this is one segment where we look at the transfer from Street to Track. ACO rules that govern the ALMS require the GT cars to use many of the production-based components. For Corvette Racing, this means starting with the aluminum frame and chassis.

Doug sets up the premise of the tech transfer segment in the Corvette Racing Tour tent where the naked cut-away chassis of the Corvette ZR1 is on display:

You can the previous Corvette Racing Tech Transfer segments below:

Related:
[VIDEO] Corvette Racing Tech Transfer: Carbon Fiber Panels
[VIDEO] Corvette Racing Tech Transfer: 2012 Corvette Centennial Edition
[VIDEO] Engineers Discuss the New Michelin Pilot Sport Cup Tires on the 2012 Corvette

 

As you can see in this post, Callaway vehicles are appearing in numbers at the Corvette Funfest this weekend in Effingham, Illinois!

I shot our 2011 Triple Black 3LT with Automatic by a cornfield on the way to the spacious fields of Mid-America Motorworks, headquartered here in Effingham.  If you are looking to compare Callaway product with other aftermarket suppliers, this show will give you a chance to view quite a variety of products.

And it you are ready to buy your Callaway now, this show is for you, as well.  Stop by the booth to discuss!

This photo shot Thursday (below) of the Callaway tent shows (right to left) a Black Callaway Camaro Coupe, a Jetstream Blue Callaway Corvette Coupe, the Black Callaway Corvette Convertible, a Crystal Red Callaway Corvette Coupe, and a Silver Callaway Silverado Crew Cab.  Even more vehicles may be present tomorrow.