GT3 cars like the Dale Patterson Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro are very deceiving.
Built by Reiter Engineering in Germany, the fifth-gen-look racer shares little with the Camaro that’s graced Chevrolet dealerships nationwide for the past five years.
While the DPM retains Camaro front chassis members and bodywork similar to the Camaro from the C-pillar onward, it actually uses a space-frame chassis. Gears are also swapped through a Hollinger paddleshift gearbox.
Likewise, you’ll find a thunderous 7.9L V8 shoehorned under its hood with 660 hp and nearly 1,000 Nm of torque (737 lb-ft of torque) and massive 320mm-wide tires in its wheel wells. All that power and grip make it devastating on the straights, says GT driver Steven Richards.
“When this thing gets on the straight it doesn’t matter who’s in front of you, it just rounds it up inside or outside. It’s a great car.”
Thanks to GT3’s balance of power rule, all that power means the Camaro isn’t allowed to produce as much down force as some of the less powerful vehicles. Meanwhile, vehicles with less power are provided with diffusers and venturi tunnels to help them get them get around the track in similar time. Those are also two pieces of technology the GT3 Camaro does without.
GT3 racing may not garner as much attention as NASCAR here in the United States, but as you’ll see in the video, it just might be high time we took a closer look.
No Comments yet