‘Leroy’ Takes Back Stick-Shift Corvette Record in Florida
C5 Corvette go-kart known as “Leroy” makes its 300th pass, takes world record, and blows a gasket.
We all dream of doing something cool with our Corvettes. Some of us prefer stunting on neon-lit streets. A few of us opt to take a cross-country adventure upon what remains of Route 66. There are even those of us who want to nail that perfect line on our favorite local track.
And then, there are those of us on a quest for glory. YouTube Cleetus McFarland is such a man, and his quest is simple: to take back the stick-shift Corvette record in his trusty steed, the twin-turbocharged C5 Corvette go-kart known as “Leroy.”
Despite the hot Florida weather and a street car drag event occurring later in the evening, McFarland’s goal is to simply “send it.” The record that day was set at 8.15, so Leroy needed to pull at least an 8.14 to retake the record. McFarland’s test pass with the Corvette was promising, especially with the boost turned “way down” against the oppressive heat: 8.38 at 169 mph.
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A few hours, some ice, and a setting sun later, McFarland and Leroy rolled back out for their first shot at reclamation against a yellow S-10. Not only did they smoke the trucklet (and some of Leroy’s brake fluid), the duo came within hundredths of seconds from taking the record back: 8.18 at 172 mph.
Excited by the results, McFarland believed Leroy would not only take the record, it would smash it in the low 8s to high 7s range. With the “bald eagles in the air” and 26 pounds of boost from the twin turbos, Leroy slams down the gauntlet with a new stick-shift Corvette run of 8.106 at 178.25 mph. Alas, the record-setting, 300th run caused one of Leroy’s heads to break the seal, leaking water onto the asphalt at the end of the track.
With Leroy out of commission for the rest of the night, McFarland and his friend Cooper worked to set an 11-second time in Cooper’s Cadillac CTS-V. As for defending the record, however, McFarland promises Leroy will get a new set of head gaskets, “turn it up even harder,” and go down the quarter-mile in the 7s.
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