Daytona’s Class Structure     At Daytona, the C5R Corvette races in the GTO or Grand Touring Over class. This class is for cars equipped with engines larger than 4 liters or 244 cubic inches. Overall finishes are important, but a class win captures valuable championship points and publicity for a the race team. Beside Corvettes, Dodge Vipers and turbo Porsches also compete in GTO. In addition, SR or Sports Racing class is for the fast exotic prototypes such as the new Cadillac LMP and the Ferrari SP’s. BMW and Porsche dominate the GTU or Grand Touring Under category and a new class at Daytona this year is the AGT or American Grand Touring class. The new Daytona 24 Hour sanctioning body called the Grand American Association developed this class. The AGT is for NASCAR type cars that look like Camaros, Mustangs and other American muscle cars.

on three critical areas that would improve the cars racing performance, handling, power and tires. A revised front suspension package along with an improved 427 cubic inch LS-1 engine helped the car run some impressive laps during a test at Sebring. At the january 6 Daytona test session, Ron Fellows sizzled the track on a new set of Goodyear tires. Fellows turned a 1:46.360 lap - almost a second faster than the Vipers. By the time the team arrived at Daytona for the 24 hour, their confidence level was pretty high. Corvette Racing brought two cars. Ron Fellows, Chris Kneifel and Justin Bell drove #3 and Andy Pilgrim, Kelley Collins and Frank Freon drove the #4 Corvette.
    Four Corvettes were entered in this year’s event. The two Corvette C5-R factory-sponsored racing entries, an ex-Trans-Am Corvette-bodied racer and the beautifully C-5 SpectreWerks Corvette GTR hardtop. Qualifying was stunning. Ron Fellows clobbered the GTO field with a 1:45.889 or 121.03 mph. This time was good for 11^th fastest overall and first in GTO. How fast was this? To put it in perspective his time was faster than six SR prototypes and the next