[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: It's impossible to ignore the parallels between
being in the desert and driving a race car.
The feeling of isolation, your having total control over
every aspect of the experience, and if something
goes wrong, there's nothing there to save you.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: Inde Motorsports Park is certainly remote
enough out in the Arizona desert.
The front straight doubles as a runway, so it's long, wide,
and unforgiving.
Rest of the two-mile circuit is bumpy,
dusty, tight, and blind.
And the AVI Racing Corvette GT1 is probably the fastest
track car I've ever driven.
Or if not, it's certainly the loudest.
In-car audio not, so much.
I have no idea if you can hear me or not, this is by far the
loudest car I've ever driven.
AVI's Wayne McKeen, after putting tens of thousands into
a C6 Corvette CO6 to go racing, had a revelation--
if you want to build a Corvette for the track, why
start with a Corvette that's meant for the street.
That's like buying a casino when all you
needed was a card table.
WAYNE MCKEEN: I love Corvettes.
The geometry and the engineering that's went into
the Corvette for a track car is unbelievable.
And we needed a stiff chassis to complement the geometry of
the Corvette.
This car is a tube-frame GT1 Corvette race car.
Essentially, a Corvette stock car, with a completely
rebuilt, redesigned two-frame chassis
that's extremely stuff.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
WAYNE MCKEEN: The body of this car is made out of--
this current car-- is made out of fiberglass the production
cars will be out of carbon fiber and Kevlar as an option,
which saves about 80 pounds to the weight
of the whole vehicle.
And the chassis itself, dry weight is about
23-30 the way it sits.
So, getting a stock zero 6 down under 3,000 pounds for a
race car is extremely tough.
So we wanted to also widen the track width of this car.
This car's eight inches wider than a C6 Corvette.
So the track width and the turn-in and everything is so
much better.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: Every bit of this car is designed the way it is
for three specific reasons--
to be as fast as possible, as light as possible, and as
simple as possible to fix, because you go to the track to
drive, not to wrench.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
WAYNE MCKEEN: AVI Racing's mission was to develop a race
car that was user-friendly, extremely reliable, and easy
to work on.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: Removing the complete carbon and fiberglass
body work takes two men only six minutes, revealing a
skeleton that is more NASCAR than Woodward Avenue.
A tube frame chassis with every bit of racing technology
you would ever need lurks underneath.
There's an adjustable brake bias with two master cylinders
powering 14-inch Brembo brakes.
There's a 28-gallon fuel cell, beefed-up [INAUDIBLE]
suspension, and a triple-disc clutch.
It has modular front and rear frame components, which means
if you crash, you can replace the entire front or rear
section for less than five figures in your own garage.
Thanks to the ease of access, one man can change a clutch or
transmission in under an hour.
There's ducting, cooling, tons of down force, and massive
square-stance 305 section slick tires.
WAYNE MCKEEN: Most people think of a race car as a Rolex
or a World Challenge 253 $100,000 race car.
We wanted to develop a track day car for $60,000--
a fraction of the money--
that will compete with those.
MATT FARAH: And Wayne should know-- he benchmarked the GT1
against his LG Motorspots World Challenge car.
And without the restrictions World Challenge cars face, the
GT1 is faster--
much faster.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
WAYNE MCKEEN: We've taken our years of race car experience
and developed an extremely fast, reliable, affordable
race car that will compete with the top cars
out in a track day.
It's extremely nimble, it tracks really well, corners
extremely well.
It's so stiff that it corners like no other car.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: Under the hood, you won't just see a
505-horsepower LS3 engine, but a complete C6 Corvette drive
line, including the cradles, which is not only effective at
getting the power to the ground, but also robust with
parts available in nearly every city
in the United States.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
WAYNE MCKEEN: The driveline in this car, as well as all the
suspension components, can be bought at your local GM
Performance parts dealer, including the transmission,
the diff, the engine itself is all available at GM
Performance parts.
So it's very easy to--
if something happens or breaks, to get new parts.
They're not custom, except for the chassis itself.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: It's every bit as exciting as it looks stepping
into this thing.
It's visceral to the point of nirvana.
It's fast, grippy, responsive, and has the best turn-in of
any car I've never driven.
It's wonderful, rewarding you when you get it just right,
and kicking you in the ass when you overcook it.
I stayed out, lap after lap, pushing the car as hard as I
could, until I realized I was having so much fun, I'd run
out of gas.
While it's important to remember this car is a
prototype, the production cars will be reaching customer
hands at the beginning of next year.
And I can't wait to drive one of those.
Now that we found out how well it grips on the track, let's
see what happens when you try and break it loose.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: I got no gas pedal.
It's got no gas pedal here.
I somehow snapped the throttle cable, and we didn't have time
to repair it, [INAUDIBLE]
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MATT FARAH: Though we came to Indy to test the car, what we
got was an experience.
The people at AVI Racing are true professionals who brought
us a great race car.
And because it's Arizona, of course somebody
brought a Mac 10.
[GUN SHOT]
MATT FARAH: This is why like shooting in Arizona--
the crew all brings guns.
[GUN SHOTS]
MATT FARAH: Is this thing shooting huge flames out of
the barrel, or is it just me?
[GUN SHOTS]
MATT FARAH: Damn!
[GUN SHOTS]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MALE SPEAKER: Bleach on the ground, soap on the tire.
MATT FARAH: Rental minivan burn out.
[CAR ENGINE ROARING]
MALE SPEAKER: That worked so good, doesn't it?
That's bleach and soap combo, man.