SACRE BLEU ! IT'S HERE IT'S HERE !!!
THE FOLLOWING WAS REPRINTED UPON REQUEST AND WAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN JUST BEFORE LAST YEARS 24 HOURS OF LE MANS - hope you enjoy it.
Hello fellow Corvette enthusiasts. I'm excited as my favorite weekend is here - the 24 Hours of Le Mans starts Saturday morning! Even if you are not a race fan, please read on - you will learn something. You see, it has become a tradition for me to watch all 17+ hours of Speed TV's coverage of this historic event along with "watching" the rest not shown on TV through live timing and scoring via the internet so I can "see" the entire 24 hour race. I've done this for the last 4 years.
Some of you (OK most of you, make that all of you) are wondering why on earth someone would do this (I know, get a life) and how does this impact you, as a corvette owner? Why should you care? Well, think about this - how do you define "best sports car value"? Most will say this boils down to two things - performance and price. Performance - how do you measure it in a sports car? A 1/4 mile at a time? No, a sports car is evaluated based not only on its acceleration, but braking, cornering, handling and, especially durability. All things truly tested in 24 hours at Le Mans.
Carol Shelby understood this and what did he do to make his fame? He used a British made body/chassis from an AC Cobra (no it wasn't a Mustang), jammed Ford muscle under the hood and went where? To the 24 hours of Le Mans to prove to the world America could build a true high performance sports car. Corvette Racing has done the same thing with the C5 and now C6 models but with even greater success. The factory sponsored Corvettes have won their class at Le Mans 5 of the last 6 years and remarkably finished first and second in 4 of the 5 wins. How far do the Vettes go in 24 hours and at what pace? Let's just say that this is not a "cruise". In 2006 the winning Vette completed 355 laps of the 8.5 mile Le Mans course covering over 3,000 miles. That's right, in 24 hours they effectively drove from Los Angeles past New York (2,824 miles) to Boston (3,026 miles). As far as pace, they averaged over 125 mph for 24 straight hours! Remember, this includes making pit stops and driver changes, so the car actually averages well over 140 mph - now that is what I call ENDURED PERFORMANCE!! Everything GM (Chevy) has learned through endurance road racing has gone into making the Corvettes we buy off of the showroom floor better and better - higher levels of performance with greater reliability. In fact, the current C6 generation Corvette was developed, hand-in-hand, with the Corvette Racing team.
What about the second measure, price? Let's look at the competitors at Le Mans- a fleet of Aston Martin DBR9's (list price for street legal version $172k), Ferrari 550 Maranello ($258k list), Lamborghini Murcielago ($280k list), and the Saleen S7R (a whopping $555k list). Where can you even buy one of these and why would you pay two to seven times as much for them as a Z06? Notice also that there are no snakes (Vipers), nor horsey's (Mustangs) up to the challenge of the 24 hour "sprint" known as LeMans. The Vipers pulled out years ago after being thumped by the factory Vette boys and Mustangs have never been competitive in an endurance road race as tough as Le Mans.
Will Corvette win again Saturday/Sunday and break their own unbelievable record once more? I don't know, but the way I see it, us Corvette lovers win either way because what Corvette Racing learns during those 24 hours translates into keeping Corvette as the best sports car for the money you can buy, bar none! Thank God they do this, we all benefit.
Well, the time is near....the beer is cold....the lawn is mowed....who cares if it rains, the Vette is in the garage....sleep is over-rated....LET THE RACE BEGIN !!
Your blood-shot eyed former President
Jerry M