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ZR- World Record Endurance Run Corvette on display at NCM
On March 1-2 1990 a unique group of people using a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, reset The 24-hour World Speed Record. That achievement proved unequivocally that the car is indeed...King of the Hill. "The 24" had stood for 50 years. Last set at Bonneville in 1940 by AP Jenkins driving the "Mormon Meteor Ill", a purpose-built. single-seat race car with an aircraft engine. The objectives: set the 24 as well as 5000 kilometer and the 5000 mile marks with a ZR-1 while using an L98-powered Corvette to set the six-hour record and other shorter distance marks.
SR 2 Corvette
Designed mid-1956 for Harlet Earl’s son Jerry, the SR-2 was put into racing duty in 1957. The car debuted at Daytona Beach in 1957 with a high-speed canopy, fender skirts and bullet-shaped frond headlights. Driven by Betty Skelton and Buck Baker, the car won the modified class with an average speed of 93.074 mph. The SR-2 also finished second in class for the flying mile with a top speed of 152.886 mph.
The Corvette skipped a year and returned to the Indy 500 in 2015. NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon drove the 'Vette for the first lap, and the car had a fairly simple body with the race decals on the doors and sponsor stickers at the front end. Gordon, who grew up in nearby Pittsboro, Indiana, is no stranger to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He won the first NASCAR race in the history of the famed 2.5-mile oval and has won four more times.