Herb Fishel, former Executive Director of GM Racing, was on-hand to mark the C5-R’s induction as one of the first racecar in the IMSA Hall of Fame. Fishel led the team at General Motors that laid the groundwork for Corvette Racing and Chevrolet’s goal of returning to top-level sports car racing at the factory level in the mid-1990s. The C5-R was born to race, according to Fishel, and was the result of collaboration between many groups within General Motors to create a long-term, factory-level road racing program for Chevrolet. The goal was to position Corvette as competitor to the world’s best sports car manufacturers on the racetrack and in the showroom. So even before the fifth-generation Corvette rolled into dealerships, plans were well underway to return Chevrolet to professional endurance racing. What has developed from C5-R is an on-going Corvette Racing program where increasing synergies between racing and production engineering have become the norm – the latest examples being the eighth-generation, mid-engine Corvette production vehicles and the C8.R and the Z06 GT3.R that will make its competitive debut in 2024. “This was a very collaborative effort that established Corvette Racing as one of the premier sports car programs in the world,” Fishel said. “It started with GM and involved various groups from both production – including vehicle engineering, design and powertrain – and racing partners like Pratt Miller and Katech working hand-in-hand. Out of the efforts from each of these groups came the first factory-produced Corvette race car in almost 40 years, and one that changed the landscape of not just Corvette but sports car racing as a whole.” |