[VIDEO] Corvette ZR1 Nearly Gets Booted from Drag Strip for Being Too Fast

Talk about a first world problem!

Christian Wheeler has his 2025 Arctic White Corvette ZR1 back at Orlando Speed World for a public test and tune night at the drag strip, but now he’s facing a new issue he didn’t even see coming.

His car is just to darn fast for the race track!

Wheeler is one of only a couple of ZR1 owners we’ve seen making meaningful content with his car, starting off with a few videos before renting out Orlando Speed World in July and going up against four exotics invited by Brooks from the DragTimes YouTube channel. Wheeler was the first to admit that he hasn’t drag raced in years before that date, and since then he’s been working to get a better understanding of how to successfully launch his car.

He says that a really cool thing recently happened as he got to speak with one of the Corvette Team engineers who spent some time going over the launch settings as well giving him tips on how to successfully do a burnout at the track in the high-horsepower sports car. Armed with that feedback, Wheeler takes us through his different launch control settings, as well as how to do the tire-warming burnout prior to his run.

Another update for this track date was that Wheeler ultimately decided to remove the high wing as StreetSpeed717 has done on his Rapid Blue ZR1. The Corvette engineer told him that the car is designed and tuned for having the rear wing on the car, but Wheeler decided to take it off and see what happens.

So after all that, Wheeler lines up for his first run, and he also has a Dragy to show him real-time results as well as comparisons to the runs he made at the track back in July. In that first run, he goes 9.85 seconds at 146.71 MPH and then compares it with one of the July runs where he ran 9.95 seconds at 140.75 mph. So, he really did get a faster trap speed with the rear wing off the car.

As Wheeler goes to pick up his time slip, the guy tells him he is “at jacket territory” with his speed and the track will require him to have an SA20 racing jacket, which I didn’t know was a thing. I’ve heard about requiring parachutes or roll cages, but not a racing jacket and I think even Wheeler was surprised by the request:

“You heard it here. They said that I need a jacket, a racing jacket if I want to run, cuz I ran 9.83 according to the sheet here. He said they shouldn’t yell at me about it this time, but the next time I want to come back that I need the jacket.”

Another track guy asks him if he was told about the “jacket”, and Wheeler says yes and the guy goes on to tell him if he runs faster than a 9.9 that he needs to wear the jacket, but if he goes slower then he won’t need one! Wheeler decided that he was pretty much done then but towards the end of the night he decides to make one more pass and is going to full send it as it’s the last pass for the night. He does so and runs another 9.85 seconds at 147.63 mph. Again, he gains a little more top speed as the temps get cooler.

Thanks again to Wheeler for sharing this content with Corvette enthusiasts and we say keep up the great work in exploring the performance of your 2025 Corvette ZR1!

From Wheeler via YouTube:

Source:
Wheeler / YouTube

Related:
[VIDEO] 2025 Corvette ZR1 Races a McLaren 750S at Orlando Speed World
[VIDEO] Wheeler Runs His 2025 Corvette ZR1 on the High Banks of Daytona International Speedway
[VIDEO] 2025 Corvette ZR1 Runs Against a Porsche 911 Turbo S

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