ALMS Gives Away A Corvette Victory In Spirit Of Competition

The sanctioning body for GT1 class has had it in for Corvette Racing this year, and finally at Lime Rock on Saturday it pays off for Aston Martin. With a string of 12 consecutive wins, Corvette Racing is the dominant team. Over the last few years champions and challengers alike (Viper and Ferrari) have fallen to Corvette Racing. This year, in a bid to make the GT1 class more competitive, the sanctioning body of the ALMS is attempting to level the playing field by making changes to Corvette Racing’s car setup, most notably weight. In March at Sebring, the first race this year, the weight for the #3 and #4 Corvettes were required to be an additional 122 pounds heavier. Following the stunning win at LeMans, the longest track on the ALMS Tour, Corvette Racing’s Corvettes were required to be an additional 199 pounds heavier, have smaller intake restrictors and a smaller fuel tank capacity than its rivals when racing at Lime Rock on Saturday, the shortest and one of the most congested, technical tracks on the circuit. And despite these sanctions, the #3 Corvette finished in second place with only 0.33 separating them from the GT1 Class Winning 009 Aston Martin DBR. I don’t wish to take anything away from Aston Martin’s win at Lime Rock, but image the #3 Corvette being nearly 200 pounds lighter and maybe one less pit stop due to a smaller fuel tank and you get the picture. This should have been a win. Carbon Fiber body panels and a hydroformed steel chassis drops the weight of the Corvette C6.R to an astonishing 2,425 pounds (500 pounds less than the 2006 Corvette Z06). Millions of dollars have been spent by General Motors and Corvette Racing in developing the kind of advanced racing machine that wins 12 straight races. And then when it dominates, it is punished in the “spirit of competition”. Competition breeds success. Competition makes not only the champions better, but the challengers as well. Imagine the NFL telling a team that their wide receivers were too fast and then required them to wear five pound ankle weights during the game. Changes the game. Maybe not a lot, but 0.33 seconds is enough.
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