[PICS] The Corvette C7.R Racecar on the Floor at NAIAS

General Motors and Chevrolet had a busy day Monday at the North American International Auto Show. First, they had to accept their awards for North American Car (Corvette Stingray) and Truck (Chevy Silverado) of the year, then it was over to Chevrolet display to show off the new 2015 Corvette Z06 and its evil twin, the C7.R. We’ve already taken a look at the Z06, now let’s immerse ourselves in a sea of C7.R.

As we mentioned previously, the Corvette Z06 caravan trekked into Cobo Hall to lead off the Press Conference. After some short comments from Mark Reuss and Dan Ammann, the new Z06 rolled on to the main stage in the GM booth.

After a few more comments, thunder erupted from back staged as the C7.R was fired up. It was then that all of the gathered media at GM display ceased listening to the words being spoken from the stage and simply focused on the racer about to creep out into the spot light. With a couple of short revs of the 5.5 direct injection motor the #3 C7.R slowly rolled into position adjacent to its street legal counterpart. Both cars wore coats of Velocity Yellow paint with the new racer already sporting its 2014 season livery.

The C7.R is powered by 5.5L naturally aspirated direct injection V8 engine. It was mentioned during the press conference that the increased fuel efficiency of the new direct injection motor could potentially eliminate 1 full pit stop during the longer endurance races. Both the Z06 and C7.R feature dry sump oiling systems and the racer gets a sequential 6 manual transmission. Outside, the track cars will be roughly 3 inches wider than the Z06 which makes it just about 6 inched wider than the base Stingray.

At one point we noticed that SRT’s boss Ralph Gilles had wandered over to check out the newest competitor to his Viper. You can watch the new C7.R’s beat SRT’s Vipers coming up in just a couple of weeks in the 24 hours of Daytona where they’ll both be competing in the GT LeMans class of the new TUDOR United Sportscar Championship. Meanwhile enjoy our C7.R gallery below.

Here’s an official video from Chevrolet with VP of Performance Cars and Motorsports Jim Campbell doing a walkaround of the new C7.R:

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