Road Show Indy 500 Coverage: Corvette Grand Sport Chosen For Pace Car Honor

This year will mark the 16^th time a Corvette has had the honor of handling pace car duties at the Indianapolis 500, as well as being the 30^th time overall for Chevy to lead the green flag for the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. As the folks on duty at the Cnet Road Show blog pointed out this past week, it would almost be a bigger news story is a Chevy or Corvette was NOT pacing for the Indy 500! This year's leader will be the 2019 Corvette Grand Sport that just may be the sweet spot in the lineup with Z06 chassis hardware, and the 460-horsepower LT1 V8 shared with the base Stingray.

To look just perfect for this star-studded job, in pace car trim it will have an 8-speed automatic and wear a Long Beach Red Metallic paint job with dual silver stripes. It's barely noteworthy that this particular model is not as powerful as last year's ZR1, as the Grand Sport's performance chops will absolutely be enough might and muscle, boasting a 0-60 mph time of 3.6 seconds. On board to help it navigate through the demanding trials and turns that lie ahead is Magnetic Ride Control Suspension and Brembo carbon ceramic brakes, providing amazing cornering capability.

To many making the pilgrimage this year to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, they are poised in place to enjoy this all-important leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport. The Monaco Grand Prix and 24 hours of Le Mans are the other two events in this awesome racing-lover's feast, with permanent seating capacity upwards of 250,000. Pop-up infield patrons raise the race-day attendance to approximately 300,000, at this celebrated world-class event that celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2011. The most successful drivers in history are A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr, and Rick Mears, all of whom have won the race four times each.

So much excitement always encompasses this annual event: drivers fervently race for 200 laps, counterclockwise around the circuit, with the grand distance total at 500 miles. We have always been overly proud here at West Chevy of our esteemed brand's presence in such a spectacle: the total purse exceeded $13 million in 2011, and it remains as one of the richest cash prize funds in existence in the sports arena with $2.5 million awarded to the winner. Built back in 1909 as a gravel-and-tar track, the very first event was won by racer Bob Burman, on a treacherous surface that lead to two deaths during the first two long-distance events held here. As the 'Vette has developed and changed so much through the decades, it has been thrilling to watch as it is time and time again the leader of such a legendary and memory-making event in Indy!