DETROIT (July 28, 2020) – Corvette Racing will ride a two-race winning streak in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship into one of North America’s greatest tracks: historic Road America. The program will look to extend its GT Le Mans (GTLM) championship lead in the class’s Manufacturer, Driver and Team categories before a national NBC audience Sunday afternoon. The first-year, mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8.R has been on a roll following the IMSA shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The work done by the whole of Corvette Racing – drivers, crew and Chevrolet and team engineers – has been evident with back-to-back class victories and pole positions at Daytona and Sebring earlier this month. Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor arrive at Road America carrying the GTLM Driver’s Championship lead on the strength of a victory at Daytona in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R. That win was the first for the mid-engine racing Corvette and also was Corvette Racing’s 100th in IMSA competition. Garcia and Taylor also were runners-up two weeks ago at Sebring, where Taylor also set a GTLM track record en route to pole position. He and Garcia finished second in class at Sebring behind winning teammates Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R. The paring claimed Corvette Racing’s most recent Road America victory: 2016 when Milner passed five cars in the last 15 minutes. Milner set the fastest race lap a year ago, and Gavin leads all active IMSA drivers with four class victories at the 4.048-mile, 14-turn “National Park of Speed.” Road America and the Corvette brand have a lengthy history dating back nearly 60 years. Chevrolet routinely used the track to test and validate the performance of early-generation Corvettes with that tradition continuing today. Road America was the site of the first on-track running of the Corvette C8.R in 2018, and another chapter of the eighth-generation Corvette will be written this weekend. The 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will serve as Official Pace Car for the IMSA rounds of the WeatherTech Championship and Michelin Pilot Challenge at Road America. Named by MotorTrend as 2020 Car of the Year, the 2020 Stingray is Chevrolet’s first mid-engine production Corvette. It features a 6.2-liter V8 engine with an output of 495hp, goes from 0-60 mph in less than three seconds and achieves a top speed of 194 mph. Both the Corvette Stingray and Corvette C8.R were developed simultaneously with a deeper level of technology transfer between the race car and a production Corvette than ever before, which helps contribute to many of its advancements. As a result, the C8.R shares the highest percentage of parts between the production and race car than any previous generation. The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Road America is scheduled for 12:05 p.m. ET on Saturday with live network coverage on NBC plus streaming options on the NBC Sports App. IMSA Radio will broadcast all practice and qualifying sessions as well as the race on IMSA.com, which also will host live timing and scoring. |