RedLS6

In the past, Mero has used Sparco race seats and a harness/bar in place of the factory equipment, for safety (see the 7.19 ZR1 record run for example). I'd be surprised if he's not using a similar setup now, although it would be interesting to hear his thoughts on the comp seats, and how they compare to his usual setup.

Mero's ZR1 at the 'Ring; I can fit easily into an Evo2 seat like this,with a little too much room left over; ....not so with the comp seats.

Glenn Quagmire

Interesting. I wish that the cars run at the Ring were 100% bone stock (nothing different than you or I could buy directly off of the showroom floor). This crap with race seats, or gearing changes (Viper), non-standard tires, etc. is BS. I realize it's part of the game, but c'mon. It makes me wonder what else is different about the car running over there and the Z07 I have on order. Moreover, what could Mero do in my '11 ZR1?

RedLS6

The differences are usually limited to safety and datalogging; race seats / harnesses, fire protection, and lots of logging electronics.

I wouldn't want any other performance changes either; but I'm all for the seats/harnesses from a safety standpoint. I doubt Mero would go to work without them; I hope he had a harness for today's incident. A good race seat also improves driver consistency from corner to corner, and reduces driver fatigue by a lot. It's tough to get a good lap in when you're using the outside of both knees to brace yourself against the door and tunnel, which often happens no matter how tightly you cinch the lap belt with stock seats, at least in the C5/6.

Darius

Let's spend millions of dollars redesigning a car to shave weight, then put a 300lb'er in the car to test how fast it can go around a track. Makes sense

Halltech

Jim's experience at Nurburgring outweighs his weight disadvantage. " Mero’s best time ever at VIR was in 2008 in the C6 Corvette ZR1 with a time of 2:45.63." In the recent Car and Driver Lightning Lap 8 article, the winner of this years LL was the Porsche 918 with a best VIR lap time of 2:43.1

I agree that the Z07 is heavier than I would have liked, but here is some background on Mero and the Stingray.

http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2013/...ette-stingray/

I still feel strongly that this car will lap 6:59 in the end. GM surely has a backup strategy for the Z07.

How do we know that he hasn't already broken some records, but told GM he felt it had more to offer with some more laps?

Remember the Porsche 918 was only 10.7 seconds faster than the Stingray at LL8 @ VIR (7 seconds faster than the Z-28); based on this, I can see sub 7 minutes at the Ring.

We will know soon.

fasttoys

Okay I get the fat jokes, but give the man some respect the Nurburgring is one tough track. You have to have ***** the size of the planet to be under 7.40. People crash and die on this track yearly.

Record Times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...eife_lap_times

Callsign_Vega

What? I'm doubtful it will even get into single digit 7's. I say 7:11.

OnPoint

Mero is a stud.

Glad he is ok.

jimmyb

Seriously????

Jim Mero did the fastest production car lap (at the time) in a ZR-1....
Being a fast, consistent driver is worth a lot more time on the track than his weight. What's your best Nurburgring time, hot shot? FYI, Mero is a GM ENGINEER by trade, literally EVERY other car maker puts a RACE DRIVER in their cars for their splashy Nurburgring time (Nissan uses a former F1 driver, FYI....Porsche....ever heard of Walter Rorhl??? Thought so.), Corvette puts a GM ENGINEER in the car to do it.

Next time, do some homework.... and show some dam respect.

Jimmy

Hirohawa

Jim Mero is the best man for the job and we are lucky team Corvette has such talent behind the wheel tackling this very difficult course.

But there is no way this car breaks into 6 minutes no matter who is driving.

NSC5

Well said!

To paraphrase Winston Churchill's original quote to a condescending woman, "I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly." we can can change that to "Jim Mero COULD lose some weight but some of the posters here will never be able to lose their stupidity."

I would love to be the 185 pound passenger for just one of Mero's runs around the ring. It would be the trip of a lifetime for most of us.

sunsalem

LOL.


Since the Z07's primary competition in this part of the world is the Viper, Chevy should have drafted in one of their professionals from Corvette Racing.
This is what SRT did when Dominic Farnbacher from Team Viper set the record in a Viper ACR.


Amen to that.

2muchhp

For all you guys making fun, you embarrass yourselves, not Jim Mero. Please read the bio from Halltech earlier this thread. This man is so far elevated in terms of technical engineering knowledge and driving skills, he only deserves the highest regards that we can send his way. As was stated earlier, his command of the vehicle, driving consistency and experience and knowledge on Corvette make him the perfect tester for GM in the best production sports car in the world - bar none. We are lucky he is in the Corvette corner.

tail_lights

glad he's alright!

Solid LT1

Looks like the C7 has a little " Rattlesnake " in its handling package....that's what separates the men from the boys right there

Still remember the 2nd night of ownership of our C6 Z06....took a drive down yo my buddies machine shop to give him a ride.....traction control off.....Check! I had already done a preliminary scouting of the performance with TC off.....first gear.....solid spin......second gear.....still frying.....speedo going over 65 MPH Z is going 25-30MPH.....bang off 3rd for the hook and launch I had experienced....did it for about 2 seconds then found a bump in the road at about 75MPH and shot sideways 90 degrees to the fast approaching curb.....somehow I saved it and recovered from my moment of terror....not of wrecking the Z but, of what I would have to explain to my wife about stacking a very expensive car....the most expensive car we had ever bought at the time.....thank god for Devine intervention. I never came to complete terms with the C6 Z06 like I had with our C5Z.....always in the back of my mind that this thing can bite hard if not properly respected......

racerns

Pretty sure it is an insurance requirement that they use a race seat and +5pt harnesses. The only real proper way to use a +5tp harness is with a fixed back seat.
It is still possibe to do a fast lap in a regular seat, just doing multiple laps is when the fatigue gets to be an issue.

dvandentop

good thing mero is ok, i hope they shipped a 2nd car over for sure to resume more testing.

racerns

Wow you really are drinking the Koolaid. You are trying to extrapolate a Z06 Ring time based on how the 918 did at the Ring with a factory/pro driver and a VIR time by some magazine testers as compared to what the Stingray did at VIR but never had a released Ring time?

You also need to factor in that the 918 that did the Ring time and the 918 that were at VIR were not the same. The 918 that ran the Ring had the higher performance Weissach-Package which adds another $84K to the price of car. The 918 at VIR was the standard one.

I would also like to know how the Z06 is going to cut 20 sec off the ZR1 time? Even if GM rented out the track for a week and ran 100s of timed laps, that is just not going to happen.

rob62

You and 30 thousand other Z owners. But many with unhappy endings.

Chichi1986

To be honest it really aint a big deal. I would expect them to crash a couple of them. That way you know the cars limits and know just how fast they are. Chevy has serious money and I bet they already have have at least 5-10,000 Z06's ready to role out.