Corvette Racing’s C7.R Breaks Cover at Monterey Laguna Seca

Corvette Racing opted to show off the next generation racer based on the C7 Corvette Stingray with two very public laps during the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca on Saturday afternoon. With Corvette Racing driver Tommy Milner at the controls, the Stingray took to the track and the feedback we’re hearing online is that the crowd was very shocked and surprised to see the camouflaged vinyl-wrapped race car in the flesh for the very first time.

The C7.R looks to be a nearly identical version (although exaggerated to race proportions) to the C7 production car with an oversized front air opening, the large air extractor on the hood and the large diagonal vents behind the front tires. What we don’t see are the cooling vents behind the doors although the racer does seem to be sporting the same tail light kits with the teardrop air vents so perhaps the transmission and differential cooling is handled slightly different from the production car.

As the C7.R has no doubt spent many hours in the wind tunnel and computer simulation, it will be interesting to see how the aero work for the track car gets transferred to the production C7 Corvette’s rumored high performance models. We see the front splitter and side rockers go nearly all the way to the ground. The rear has a diffuser that is not integrated into the body work but appears to be suspended under it.

Chevrolet is the featured marque at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion and many significant Corvette racers through the years are on display. Racer Magazine quotes Chevrolet’s Director of Racing Mark Kent as saying “The Corvette Celebration at Laguna Seca was the perfect setting to provide a glimpse of things to come by doing a few laps with the new Corvette C7.R race car.”

Corvette Racing’s first race with the C7.R will mostly like come at the 2014 Daytona 24 in January as the ALMS and GRAND-AM series unite under the United Sports Car Racing banner.

Just added! Video of the C7.R leaving the garage courtesy of Lance Miller:

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Bondurant School of High Performance Driving

Source:
Racer.com
Corvette Info Center

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