Preview: Corvette Racing Video Series

[Daywalkertwentyseven]

Don't know why but the scene @ 2:15 is my favorite from the entire video

[ImSki11ed]

Corvette is my FAVORITE car in the world American car that is wicked fast and its a Chevy. Chevy makes the best cars in the world. Way better than Ford.

[8thcivicownr]

its awesome that corvettes are made an hour away from my house!!

[Skachild23]

this is what i live for

[kevin81818]

i respect racing alot! with a heart and passion

[Evolove510]

That's the life i want to live.

[TheRedemtion]

AMEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bynddrvn5]

love seeing the US represented in World class racing, awesome job!

Good luck this year.

[seapeddler]

I find it hard to believe that GM is incapable of making a world-class race car. With all the computers and input, something seems amiss.

Imagine a 'perfect' world with no national parks, grizzlies, buffalo, wolves, antelope, etc. Put on GODS' glasses and see 'his' creation. GOD is not a race-car driver, or a money-grubbing capitalist. But, he does destroy those who interfere with his brilliant Kingdom. We will succumb to prophecy with our greed, and 'me-first', WIN mentality. Good sermon?

[snakesinmypants]

to bad these guys suck at driving in the pits or should I say parking in the pits.

[youtubasoarus]

Honestly, I wasn't going to reply to this because I think I made my point clear. But seriously, YOU need to educate yourself on GM and how much money this company has lost over time. It loses money all the time. Billions of dollars. So forgive my skepticism in GMs ability to pay back their loans. Also, the jobs issue is a red herring. Those jobs would easily go to some other company like Honda, Toyota, or whoever all of which who have plants here. GM is a dinosaur.

[Sharon123460]

Hey Youtubasoras; Since you are SO concerned with our Govt "wasting" dollars, how about questioning where 2/3's of the 1st stimulus package are? How about questioning all the ridiculous govt programs like cell phones and cable for all? Do we see ANY of those $'s coming back into our pockets? NOPE not one dime, but we'll pay for 5 babies with 5 different fathers forever. So forgive me but your comments are ridiculously misguided. GM is paying back WITH interest every dime. PS: Your Canadian?

[35057]

wow! frickin amazing video!

[TodoMusicaLatina]

corvette power¡¡¡¡

[dvandentop]

hell yeah this is going to be a bad ass series to watch, hopefully weekly updates

[09Sparty]

This is going to be one hell of a series...

[eric1138]

What is significant about this year (In addition to the last third of the 2009 season) and what is lost on Joe Public is unlike all those years they raced GT1 in which they used a TUBE chassis, the GT2 class they are in now requires them to actually use the production Corvette chassis. I would strongly argue that this is actually the true introduction of the Corvette to ALMS racing.

[jayxer]

Not quite, the GT1 car was significantly enhanced by the use of chromoly steel tubing and carbon fiber. However, the backbone of the GT1 car was the steel hydroformed chassis rails right from the production C6 Chassis. In GT2, they are using the Aluminum Hydroformed chassis rails.

[eric1138]

Thank you for the clarification. I heard the same thing when discussing this subject at my Trackday this weekend at Texas World Speedway. I really wish the ALMS site would go into more detail on the modifications that are allowed in GT2.

[Gunfulker27]

That is a sexy car

[DannyBoySmith1993]

All that's left to say is BRING ON SEBRING!!!

[green95gt]

@C6Rrr i feel any car finishing a 24 hr race is an achievement. The 550's were great but those against the C5R's weren't as big a rivalry as with the DBR9's. I think prodrive ramped it up with those newer cars.

[green95gt]

@C6Rrr The greatest competitor they've had was Prodrive with the DBR9 whenever they decided to run it against the C6R. They were the only ones that had the budget to come close to GM/P&M. Everyone else were smaller privateers whom probably never even got to run a whole season they were so small and couldn't afford top drivers.

Plus Ferrari worries more about F1 and Prodrive is trying to get into F1 and does WRC.

You'll go real fast in racing if you have the most cash to spend.

[C6Rrrr]

@green95gt the Ferrari was also run by Prodrive, with a lot of cash to spend too I can only assume...

I agree that bragging about ALMS victories is a bit lame, but their wins at LM24 are quite the achievement!

[Hemulen40]

Veteran Vettes !

[thebs413]

Never in my life have I ever seen such irresponsible bashing. Corvette is one of the few, American icons that has lasted and been very profitable over time. It's also a heavily All-American component, engine and assembly product. Don't confuse some GM products with Corvette. Also note that GM has innovated and had major firsts with Corvette, even if their management has done so many other things poorly. Kinda sad that with 12 years of racing, and countless innovations, sales are down.

[frambesbuckeye]

Hey GM, why don't you make a production model that is N/A and uses coil overs instead of the lame SC and leaf springs the ZR1 uses? Build a GT1 or even a GT2 vette for the street. That's what I would die to have.

[jayxer]

ah yes, another uninformed moron. Do you realize what the use of the transverse leaf spring is? It's not used for dampening, its used as a anti roll bar. Being made of composites makes it half the weight of a steel roll bar. The Corvette suspension is quite advanced, and in some cases top of the line. The ZR1 and Carbon Z06 editions use magnearethical dampers. The only other car in prodution to use that technology is the Ferrari 599 GTB. And guess where they bought it from... DELPHI

[eric1138]

The most important thing is that it uses wishbone suspension which is ideally what you want in a sports car. However, while combining the functions of the spring for your dampener with that of the anti roll bar saves weight , it is my understanding that it is not uncommon for some corvette owners to switch to coil-overs in attempt to negate what they call "crosstalk" inherent in this design.

[Risingtide93]

German Engineering > American Engineering

[C6Rrrr]

@Risingtide93

Slower and more expensive cars equal better engineering?

[Risingtide93]

@C6Rrrr Engineering is not all about speed. I have yet to see Corvette coming up with hybrid racing car.

[C6Rrrr]

@Risingtide93

Besides the fact that the term "hybrid racing car" sounds like an even bigger nightmare than the silent diesels, what is the point of having it besides pr? Has it won Porsche races already? Engineering (at least in racing) is very much about speed and reliability. Corvettes have proven to have that!

[Risingtide93]

@C6Rrrr I dont know you tell me. Racing car with 70mpg and zero to sixty under 3.2s. and can go to 17miles in purely electricity. This is what i call engineering. Not just some tune ups and upgrade with all the money you have, gas guzzling car.

[jayxer]

17 miles on electricity? Wow that sounds like quite the acheivement. I'll remember to buy a $200K porsche hybrid for all my journey's under 20mi. The reason that concept car was so fast was because it was powered by the V8 RACING engine used in it's LMP2 RS Spyder. Which isn't even close to any of Porsche's production engines. So the reality of the performance of that concept car is highly misguided. That car was as close to being production ready as a Top Fuel Dragster would be.

[green95gt]

I'd be successful at racing too if I barely had any competition and my budget was 20x the toughest competitor. Honestly I don't see how they can brag for years they've raced with only themself essentially...typical ALMS cool cars but zero competition. GM needs to get with it.

[C6Rrrr]

@green95gt 6 wins in 10 years of competion at Le Mans 24hrs. But that was only against Aston Martin's and Ferrari's and the like...

[odysseybmx88]

Fuck Jörg Bergmeister, go Jan Magnussen and team!

[youtubasoarus]

I'd say that Corvettes are good cars, but they are NOT great cars. And all this epicness they try to imbue into the video, I am not buying. Corvette, and by extension, GM, have a LOT of work to do if they ever hope to get this brand out of the dumpster. Don't forget that tax payers are footing the bills for keeping this damned company afloat.

I certainly appreciate the engineering going behind this, but lets lose the nonsense shall we. I'd rather see GM as a NO BS company.

[viasevenvai]

@youtubasoarus what's your basis for these thoughts? because corvette is using lap times to prove themselves.

[youtubasoarus]

My basis? How about the tax payer footing the bill for starters? I don't care about their racing program, I just care that they become a profitable company that the taxpayers do not have to support and bailout every other year. When they learn to make proper products, i'll be more than happy to pat them on the back. But for now, they have a LONG road ahead of them. And a few fancy C6R's are not going to change my opinion.

[chevrolet]

The whole point of this series is to show how we use racing to build the best Corvette we can for our customers. Building the best Corvette translates into sales. Simply put, racing helps sell cars.

[youtubasoarus]

How about you focus on pushing the BEST cars you can. Hyundai doesn't have or need a racing program in order to sell cars. Your Race Sunday, Sell Monday mentality doesn't work anymore. GET WITH THE TIMES.

[youtubasoarus]

I should add. Racing programs are great if you HAVE THE MONEY to do them. You don't use tax payer money to gamble on racing programs. I would fully support this measure if GM was profitable and had paid back all bailouts/loans to the government. You can try to woo the public with this, but i'm not buying. You've got some mighty pissed off people who do NOT want to foot the bill for this.

There are plenty of car companies who are profitable today that do not rely on racing to push product.

[chevrolet]

Well, we hope you'll watch the series to get more of an idea of what we do. Racing helps us learn things about cars much more efficiently than if we were to do our own programs.

[viasevenvai]

@youtubasoarus they aren't racing just for fun, it's product development. if you care about their success you should demand more racing!

plus, you can't call GM out for using tax money. there are plenty of other useless users of taxes. it's not a great thing that they have to use it, but obviously by bailing them out the government saw it as a good thing OVER TIME. saved a lot of people's jobs and in the future it'll be even better.

be positive instead of bitching about your money!

[youtubasoarus]

You know what, I wish I could be as ignorant as most people on this. As I said, if they were solvent I wouldn't complain at all. They could do a lunar mission for all I care. But on our dime, they best be figuring out ways to become profitable.

Do not mistake my attitude on this to be that I do not appreciate or LOVE racing. On the contrary. I just think GM could be using the money more wisely. I mean they aren't going to make the brunt of their money on Corvettes. There's no volume there.

[RXPkid]

the government loans are going to be paid back by summer 2010.

[youtubasoarus]

I don't care if they are paying it back tomorrow. They shouldn't need to borrow from tax payers. Period. The government is already in a deficit situation, so again, pissing away 60 odd billion on GM is not helping things at all.

[RXPkid]

where are you getting $60billion? it was $17.4billion split between chrysler and GM. again, they're paying it back so this is not affecting the deficit. uncle sam is getting every penny of his loan back so i don't see what the problem is. they are not "pissing away" money. you would have much bigger economic issues had the government let them fail.

[youtubasoarus]

Where am I getting that? That is the combined monies loaned /bailed out to GM from Canada and the United States.

[jayxer]

Hey idiot you know the government went over all the expenditures of GM during the bankruptcy right? They axed Mfr support in most of its racing budgets. Save for a scaled down NASCAR budget, and the Corvette Racing program. They did this because the CR program was so successful and the development it brings to the production car market was so high, they were TOLD to continue the program. Idiot. Hyundai? You do realize the compete backed by the factory in the D1 drift series right?  Idiot.

[Phenix88rene]

@youtubasoarus I would rather pay for this than two fucking wars.

[youtubasoarus]

@Phenix88rene -- Agreed about the wars part. But I don't know that my taxes should be going towards shit like this.

[Dopelt19]

@youtubasoarus  Fuck you.

[youtubasoarus]

@Dopelt19 -- LOL! 

[youtubasoarus]

@Dopelt19 -- Fuck you too bud.

[pearldrummer777]

@youtubasoarus Since you're so mad about this, lets switch roles for a second. Pretend you're GM. What are you gonna do? Pull the money out of your ass? No you're going to try to convince people to buy your vehicles. One way could be showing exactly what GM can accomplish, and the C6R is a great way to do so. No one likes to pay taxes, so just shut up and deal with it like everyone else. I believe that if there's something worth spending tax payer dollars on, it should be something entertaining!

[youtubasoarus]

@pearldrummer777 -- Fair enough. YOU PAY FOR IT then. My taxes should be paying for shit that I use. I buy Japanese and Korean cars. American cars are crap.

[faster7802]

@youtubasoarus ****---- #1 How are you taxes paying for a private co. to build race cars? #2 if they are somehow in your mind why don't you move to Japan or Korea? That way you can pay them your taxes. That way they can take care of you since you seem to want to support them. I guess Honda, Toyota, don't race? Huh.

[ImSki11ed]

@faster7802 Your very lucky dude I wish they were made that close to my house!!!!!!

[contributor34]

@youtubasoarus racing programs aren't only about developing technology, they are also about building reputation and name recognition: marketing. If the public has a stake in GM, then we hope GM will market their products well and be successful. That means investing money in marketing and thus marketing tools and campaignes. This particular product needs to be legitimized otherwise buyers will flock to the well know competition such as porche, bmw, lotus etc. Racing legitimizes this niche.

[wahoo99]

Soarus - write your President. Until then, whining on a web board does nothing.

See you in Sebring!!

[youtubasoarus]

This is Chevrolet's official channel. I'm sure their people check out and note peoples opinion on the matter. Also, it is not my president to write. I am from Canada. Our government pissed away at LEAST 10.5 billion of our tax dollars on this company. I am putting in my 2 cents worth. As a tax payer, I have EVERY RIGHT to speak up.

With Canada facing a massive deficit for bone headed moves like this I am seething. I do like SOME of GM's products. I just wish they'd focus on their core lineup.

[youtubasoarus]

@chevrolet -- Do you own a GM or have you purchased a GM lately? If not, why? Your argument is superfluous. 

[Skachild23]

@youtubasoarus i do believe is GM is bringing a good amount of rewards and succsess

[youtubasoarus]

@Skachild23 - I'm hoping they do well with the Volt. But other than that they seem to still be paying their loans off with other loans. It's simply shuffling money around.

[Skachild23]

@youtubasoarus volt isnt the only thing theyve got. and there money problems have slowly but surely been disolving.

[Robstor88]

What a fking great video!

[OniXV250]

this is the 'vettes fate: watch?v=brNtbaMadX4 great car...just a shame all the drivers are cocks

[odysseybmx88]

uhhh, no, that video is heavily disputed, and unfortunately, brand loyalty puts huge blinders on both sides of the arguments. You obviously have blinders on.

[leandrolefa]

One's gotta love that car.

It's awesome in many ways.

But saying it's the best street car to start with is a little bit of a strech, don't you think?

Now, with the beautiful work you guys are putting on the car, you'll definitely rock!

[BaltoJB]

The Corvette is a brand that has been around for decades and has always lived up to its name. You boys at GM, keep up the hype, it's working!

[CommonBondBasketball]

VERY excited to see more!!!

[edgeboymax]

So brilliantly scary, it's scary brilliant. <3

Love Corvette.

[ilovecristycorrea]

Corvette is king, i get the chills watching this, it's so epic!!!

[SirGarforth]

this is so epic

[infestedzac]

cold chills..

[brettwhite72]

I could watch videos like this for hours every day....

[redriverman2006]

Chevrolet needs to get vids like these in the hands of CNBC, FOX News, CNN, MSNBC...

[chrisdraper2007]

EPIC!!!!!!!