Four Chevrolet Corvette DPs To Hit The Track At Belle Isle This Weekend

by Sam McEachern
— May 28, 2015

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If one of the four Chevrolet Corvette DPs set to hit the track this weekend at Belle Isle can pull out a win, it will be the fourth year in a row a Chevy has won the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic Presented by the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers. All of the last three victories have gone to solely to Wayne Taylor Racing’s Jordan Taylor, but seeing as Corvette DP drivers hold four of the top five spots in TUDOR Championship’s points standings, he’ll have plenty of competition trying to stop him from locking down his fourth consecutive win at Detroit.

In addition to winning the last three races there, Corvette DPs are also historically the fastest cars on the tight 2.3-mile 14-turn Belle Isle circuit. Corvette DP drivers have posted the fastest qualifying times at Belle Isle for the last three years and have also posted the fastest race laps twice. This year the track has changed slightly thanks to some investment from Roger Penske and his partners, who repaved and widened the road surface and improved some of the sight lines.

“It has been a good racetrack for us as we have had a good car there in the past.” said Wayne Taylor Racing’s Ricky Taylor. “The track has changed a bit from past years but I don’t think it will affect our approach to the race. We expect everyone else will be stronger than ever, however, we do expect to not lose. I’d say (Belle Isle is) second only to the Rolex 24 (in importance). We put an incredible amount of emphasis on this event. Being right outside of GM’s headquarters, we give everything we have to give Chevrolet a good result on home soil.”

Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante of VisitFlorida.com Racing carry the most momentum heading to Detroit coming fresh off of a win at Laguna Seca. The pair are currently leading TUDOR’s Prototype class ahead of Action Express Racing’s Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi and have yet to finish off the podium so far this year,

“It was great to finally get our first win of the season at Laguna Seca but that’s old news now.” said Valiante “We are extremely confident in what we have going forward and what the team is going to bring to the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic. We’ve got the points lead now so we’ve gone from the hunters to the hunted. It’s a good feeling to lead the TUDOR Championship but we certainly can’t get comfortable.”

Catch the Corvette DPs as they fight for a win with General Motors’ Renaissance Center headquarters looming in the distance this Saturday at 12 p.m. Live timing and scoring can be viewed at IMSA.com and the race will also be broadcast live on FOX Sports 2.