5 Track Day Upgrades for Your Corvette

1. Driving instruction

This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but in order to go faster at the track, you have set your ego aside and be willing to learn. The best mod for the track is the “Driver mod”. Your Corvette is a very capable sports car in stock form, and chances are it is the squishy bit behind the wheel that's the biggest hindrance to fast lap times, not the car itself. Track Day organizers like the SCCA and NASA offer in-car and technical classroom instruction to teach you the in’s and out’s of handling your car on track.

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2. Tires

When it comes to rookie mistakes, this is one of the most commonly overlooked upgrades for the car. People tend to get fixated on the shinier go-fast bits, like upgrading the suspension and adding a ton of power, but all of that is for naught without the right rubber for your ride. Many tire manufacturers make special tires specifically designed for track use, they are soft, grippy race tires that have life spans measured in heat cycles, not miles. These tires will seriously drop your lap times like nothing else. If that’s a bit too extreme for you, the increasingly popular “Extreme Performance Summer Tire” category might be the ticket. These streetable tires offer the same levels of grip as the racing tires of yesteryear, while maintaining the ability to drive on them to work, to the track and back again.

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3. Brake pads

Much like tires, novice driver’s tend to think about their brake systems in too shallow of a manor, or worse, not at all. On track, you’re subjecting your car to high speed stopping activity repeatedly, lap after lap, often hitting triple digit speeds. As a result your brakes take a beating, especially the brake pads. It’s not enough to simply check and make sure that there is enough brake pad “meat” left, street brake pads just don’t cut it on track. Much like track day tires, there are also track day brakes designed to deal with the heat and repeated abuse of track driving. Masters of the track day become accustomed to swapping brakes from street to track in the day before their next event.

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4. Brake fluid

While we’re on the subject of brakes, your brakes are only as good as their weakest link. If you have upgraded your brake pads and are still experiencing a fading brake pedal on track, you’re experiencing brake fluid fade. Your brakes work via hydraulic pressure, and as the brakes scrub speed via friction creating heat, which goes into the rotors, the calipers, and eventually the fluid itself. Red hot rotors can easily heat up brake fluid several hundred degrees, until it boils and you have no brakes. Just like brakes pads, fluid is a safety item, and if you use the cheap stuff, or it is old the boiling point is going to be lower, resulting in sufficient braking pressure when it gets hot.  Boiled brakes means that your ‘Vette isn’t going to slow down predictably, or as much as you need it to. Racing brake fluid such as Castrol SRF and Torque RT700 are excellent, albeit pricey, fluid suitable for demanding the high speeds your Corvette can achieve. At the very least, you ought to change and flush it once a year with a good quality name brand fluid.

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5. Wheel alignment

Those who are in the know will tell you that the right alignment is crucial for on-track performance. A good alignment will help reduce tire wear, let your car handle better, and make it more predictable on track. A race shop can perform a specialty alignment beyond what the tires changers at your local Firestone are doing, and what the factory recommended setting are. They will optimize the camber, toe and caster on your ride for the best performance. If your Corvette has been upgraded with adjustable suspension, a corner balance alignment can do well for your track toy. Corner balancing is when your ride is put on scales, which each wheel having its own scale. The ride height is adjusted at each corner of the car until the same amount of weight is being handled with each corner. A reputable shop will have you sit in the car to account for your weight too.

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For more information on maintenance and repairs, please check out our do-it-yourself technical articles at https://www.corvetteforum.com/how-tos.