Laguna Seca 200 miles -
for 200 A-spec points
I just finished a nice challenging race at Laguna Seca for 200 points in my Chevy Corvette Grand Sport. After 90 laps, my margin of victory was 7 seconds!!
The finishing order was:
Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport '96 2.20.25.051
Saleen S7 '02 2.20.32.607
Ford GT '05 2.20.34.125
Shelby Series 1 SuperCharged 2.20.40.182
Chevy Camaro SS '00 over 1 lap down
Pontiac GTO 5.7 Coupe '04 over 1 lap down
A very interesting race due to the various pit strategies that my competition employed.
The Saleen pits on laps 22,44,66,88
The Ford GT pits on laps 16,32,48,64,80
The Shelby pits like me on laps 18,36,54,72
So even though the Saleen finishes second, you almost never see him. The car you race against is the Ford GT who is right on your back bumper all race long (or at least in your mirror).
I jumped into the lead at the end of lap one since all the cars are slow on cold tires. I stayed in front until I pitted on lap 18, when the Saleen took over the lead until he pitted on lap 22. I passed the Saleen while he was getting fresh rubber and re-took the lead. This continued all race. I was in second place, 24 seconds down when the Saleen pitted for his final time on lap 88, so I passed him while he was in the pits, and drove on for two laps to get my 7 second margin of victory!!
The Ford GT pits before me (after riding my back bumper) so I would pull out a 4 to 8 second lead over him after each round of pit stops. However, the Ford GT would then run faster laps than me which would eliminate this gap by the time he needed to pit again.
The Shelby Series 1 pits on the same laps as me but was never in contention, so I never saw him except at the start.
My Grand Sport had a number of upgrades to compete in this endurance race.
I went to my friendly Chevy dealer and purchased all non-point parts. I had them give my engine a nice "port polish", plus I had them perform a Stage 1 weight reduction by having them throw out the back seats and my sixteen speaker radio/CD player.
I also installed a semi-racing exhaust, a racing chip and the Stage 1 NA tune.
So after all these modifications my Grand Sport had 385HP (at the garage screen) and weighted 1496kg (I had to add back 15kg of ballast to get the 200 points after the Stage 1 weight reduction was performed. I ran all race on R1/R2 tires.
Without drafting or NOS my best lap was a 1.31.163 screamer. I was normally running 1 minute and 32 second laps once my tires warmed up.
Using the Chevy Grand Sport was great fun and just another way of winning the beautiful 1969 Ford GT40 in Gulf colors.
GTsail290