Chevrolet’s Corvette Racing team continues to show near perfect form with wins in all three races they’ve contested thus far this year. At the American Le Mans Series season opener in Sebring back in march, Oliver Gavin shattered the GTS qualifying record to put the #4 C5-R on pole, but his tenure at the front was short lived. Post qualifying tech inspection revealed that the Corvette’s rear wing end plates were about 1/8-inch beyond the permissible adjustment point. This had no material affect on the car’s performance but nonetheless series rules dictated that the car had to start at the back of the grid. Thus Ron Fellows in the #3 Corvette inherited pole position.
Intense competition was expected to come from Fredric Dor’s Prodrive Ferraris, the same cars that won Le Mans last year and nearly deprived Chevy’s Corvette squad of the 2003 ALMS championship. But the screaming red 550 Maranellos were withdrawn prior to race day owing to a lack of sponsorship money.
The worlds’ best sports cars have been squaring off against one another at Le Mans since 1923. This is the beginning of the famed Mulsanne straight, where C5-Rs approach 200 mph and prototype racers they share the track with go considerably faster than that.
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