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CORVETTE RACING AT CHARLOTTE: Technology & Data Sharing

Exchange of information between Corvette Racing, Chevrolet NASCAR engineering
DETROIT (Oct. 7, 2020) – This weekend’s event at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s road course venue for Corvette Racing and Chevrolet’s NASCAR Cup Series teams is a unique opportunity for the manufacturer with two of its premier programs at the same track on the same weekend.
Corvette Racing competes in a 100-minute, GT-only race for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on Saturday night on the Charlotte Roval, with the NASCAR Cup Series hitting the 2.28-mile, 17-turn road course Sunday afternoon.
Given the Chevrolet NASCAR team’s experience with the Charlotte Roval, data and information has been flowing between Cup Series engineering and that of Corvette Racing. 
It’s a similar situation to the teamwork between programs ahead of the Cup Series’ race on the Daytona International Speedway road course in August. Corvette Racing driver Jordan Taylor assisted Hendrick Motorsports drivers in getting up to speed at Chevrolet’s Driver-in-the-Loop (DiL) racing simulator. Chase Elliott went on to win that race in his Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE.
Corvette Racing team manager Ben Johnson explains how the flow of data and information goes back-and-forth between the two programs…
BEN JOHNSON, CORVETTE RACING TEAM MANAGER: “Everywhere we go, our primary goal is to come up with the best setup and tire selection so the drivers can maximize the performance of the car. In 2020, we’re doing that everywhere we go. There are a lot of tracks that we haven’t previously tested the C8.R before. We’re building up the notebook at all times. So while coming to Charlotte is a bigger challenge because we don’t have prior experience with the C7.R, we have the tools and methodology. They are applied the same no matter where we go.”
“The biggest crossover between what we do at Corvette Racing and the Chevrolet NASCAR teams are the tools we use from primarily the simulation space – desktop simulations, lap-time simulations and all the way up to the Driver-in-the-Loop (DiL) rig. We wanted to learn as much as we could from the NASCAR group to see how we can best utilize the track model. Is there anything specific about the track model that we want to learn from while we’re in the DiL rig before we go to the track and then go back to the DiL rig? Ultimately the cars are very different, but within Chevrolet we use quite a bit of the same technology so you can learn a lot from someone who has used those tools for Charlotte.”
“We tried to learn as much as we could from the NASCAR team in terms of the track itself. That’s where they have a lot of experience in understanding the grip profile of the track. Regardless of the car or the tire, you can use that to accelerate our learnings here at Corvette Racing.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s race at Charlotte is scheduled for 8:05 p.m. ET on Saturday with live television coverage on NBCSN and live streaming via TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold. In addition, IMSA Radio will broadcast the race on IMSA.com, which also will host live timing and scoring. The race also will air on XM channel 202 and SiriusXM Online 972.