Life after the C5-R? you bet!

I heard today that General Motors has plans for a C6-R after the C5's production is over! looks like Corvettes racing history has just begun :) :) :) :)

That is awesome news indeed! The C5-R is a great beast and a blast to see and hear!

And they have one of my fav driver on board, Ron Fellows. A genuine nice guy.

Long live the Corvette race program!

Yeah,and dont forget the other drivers!

GO ANDY PILGRIM!!!!:D :sun:

Well, it's finally picked up where it left off. I wish Zora could see that his baby is finally winning international events. He struggled with the SS, fought with the Stingray, and was dashed when GM pulled the plug on the magnificient Grand Sports. Now, C5-R's are only threatened by Ferraris (the way it should be, Il Commendatore is, was, and forever shall be GOD) and GM has thrown its weight behind the car.

Still, I'd like to just once see the C5-R's wearing metal-flake blue paint with a single white stripe that wraps aroun the nose and then flows back to the tail, and roundel numbers. That's the way it should be.

Make Zora proud, wherever he is.

Why didn't the C5R race a the Rolex 24 at Daytona this year?

Probably the Grand-Am has rules that make it pointless to modify the C5-R's to race. This year, the Grand-Am is all about showing that their "Daytona Prototypes" are the next breed of endurance race car. They've already phased out SRP competition, and have put so many restrictors on the SRPII cars that they have no chance of competing with the GT class. It's very sad.

I have to agree. Seems that noone is interested in SRP anymore. And while the "Daytona Prototype" proved to be effective, I really don't want them to turn American Lemans, or Trans AM series, into Nascar restrictor plate racing.

hmmm....the DP beting by the GT class (@ the 24 hoD).........what does that say? DP is not good enough, or GT is too good?

I think that the SRP/WSC/LMP classes have done it to themselves.

Grand Am realizes that you can't make up a field with 9 teams, 2 competitive, in your top tier class. Therefore, they came up with the idea of creating a new class. Unfortunately, the new class was reverse-engineered from SCCA Spec-Mazdas. It's a tube-steel spaceframe chassis underneath that bodywork. The cars are little more than rear-engined multi-valve Trans-Am racers.

However, they are cheap to build. I know of two SCCA club teams that looked at Picchio chassis over the winter and considered putting together a program. Everybody laughed at the IRL when they did this in 1996. But it could work in the long run for American Professional Road Racing.

At least from a driver's standpoint. From a manufacturers standpoint, we need the ACO and IMSA to come to a finite conclusion; what are we going to do to get the manufacturers back? It's silly. I recall midway through last year, someone put the question to Toyota "Why did you come to Formula One instead of building on your Le Mans program?" The candid reply, as I recall, was "We have found that it is cheaper to attain long term results in Formula One, than to have short term success at Le Mans. That's pitiful. Formula One shouldn't be a cost-effective ALTERNATIVE to sportscar racing. Especially for a motoring giant like Toyota.

Well Said, why race in a series (mind you this is a large corporation thinking) that no one cares about, theres no compitition and will cost a pretty penny to modify to the car just so it can do one race.

Thanks, that was exactly my point. Grand-Am is a small fry in the grand scheme of things. So Chevrolet had no reason to run in their sanction.

Still, it was offering up the better racing last year. 2001 was great for them, too. I loved seeing the Risi Competizione Ferrari 333SP at Daytona. Such a beautiful car. Plus I like the Picchio. I hope a few of them find their way to the ALMS.

hmm...I also like the 333SP...to bad ferarri stoped improving it....it was an old design

Hey, that's tradition at Ferrari. Sportscars are unimportant until the F1 team is winning. Recall the last time Ferrari got serious about sportscars. 1970, the 512S program. There were several in Can-Am (one particularly beautiful example being campaigned by Roger Penske) and the cars were found at Le Mans, the Targa Florio, Nurburgring, and Spa. Unfortunately, this was the era of the 917. And we all know that nothing could truly hope to compete against a 917.

Actually, I wish Ferrari had followed through with the F50 GT-1 project. A highly aero-efficient production based car powered by an ex-F1 V12 that was second only to the Honda 12's in power during its era. Seems like the perfect tool for vaporizing Porsches and slaying McLarens.