C7 Corvette ZR1 and Randy Pobst Tear Up Willow Springs International Raceway
Expectations for the C7 Corvette ZR1 are so high that anything other than a record lap results in disappointment.
Calling the C7 Corvette ZR1 fast is a bit of an obvious statement at this point. But the latest and greatest ‘Vette is clearly more than capable of backing up all that noise. This is a car that has already set multiple production car lap records at multiple tracks, and those marks just keep falling. Unfortunately, Willow Springs wasn’t one of them – yet. But judging by this video posted by Corvette Forum member jbsblownc5, it wasn’t from a lack of effort on driver Randy Pobst‘s part.
“I have nothing other then this picture from Randy and additional confirmation from a friend that it is out there. My friend says the car is flying, but it looks like he’s having some fun with the ZR1! MT is testing it, so official results won’t be available for a little while. If that 120.5 is the time, WOW! It’s 100 degrees as well, but the car is doing just fine.”
As we later find out, this effort is indeed being conducted by Motor Trend. And it’s also part of their “Best Driver’s Car” testing. Thankfully, it isn’t long before eyedeekay shares the results from those efforts.
“2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Motor Trend 6/2018 test results (to be published on “Track Monsters” page in 7/2018 issue) (8-spd. auto.):
0-30 mph = 1.3 s
0-40 mph = 1.8 s
0-50 mph = 2.3 s
0-60 mph = 2.8 s
0-70 mph = 3.4 s
0-80 mph = 4.1 s
0-90 mph = 4.9 s
0-100 mph = 5.8 s
1/4-mile = 10.7 s / 132.3 mph
Figure-8 = 22.0 s / 1.15 g
Willow Springs = 80.99 s“
ALSO SEE: 2019 Corvette Grand Sport Review: The Sweet Spot
Clearly, that “disappointing” performance has many members, including fellow C7 Corvette ZR1 owner Poor-sha, wondering what happened. Especially since Pobst strangely said the Corvette ZR1 felt “twitchy.”
“I have nothing bad to say about Randy as I’ve met him a couple of times and he is a heck of a nice guy and obviously is very accomplished as a racer. Suspect we may have another alignment issue going on here or some other factor at play though. I have three track days under my belt now with the ZR1 and I didn’t think it was at all twitchy.
Go watch my videos and even in second gear the car puts the power down well. If anything, the car really tends to understeer more than I like, but I believe that is aero-related. We also don’t have a huge weight delta to the C7 Z06 at ~60 lbs. Plus, it sounds like the model that the track test was done on was a 1LZ, which should’ve been lighter than my 3LZ Z06. It looks like both cars were autos. I wonder if they tried to manually shift or left them in drive?”
And that’s just the beginning of what has quickly raged into a massive debate. Albeit a fascinating one. Truthfully, we never expected the C7 Corvette ZR1 to reset every track record on the planet. But that won’t stop our members from debating what went wrong here. Be sure and head over here to scope out the entire discussion, and leave your own thoughts on this result while you’re there!
Join the Corvette forums today!
