The Chevy Silverado ZR2 and Chevy Colorado ZR2 have won their respective classes in this year’s Best In The Desert championship.
Chevy races mostly stock versions of the Silverado ZR2 and Colorado ZR2 in the American desert racing series to help aid in the development of the performance trucks and their respective body-on-frame platforms. Both trucks are campaigned by the Chad Hall Racing team, which began racing the Colorado ZR2 in 2017. It later added a pre-production version of the Silverado ZR2 to its race lineup in 2019 as Chevy began preparing the model for its eventual release next year.
The main purpose of this off-road racing program is to help speed up the development of the Chevy Silverado ZR2 and Colorado ZR2 and ensure they are ready for whatever customers can throw at them. Both trucks are the only vehicles that compete in their respective classes, with the Silverado racing in the ‘1200’ class and the Colorado in the ‘7300’ class. So while both Chevys won the title in their classes, all Chad Hall Racing really had to do was show up to various Best In The Desert events and drive over the start line.
Roger McCormack, director, Accessories and Performance Parts Marketing, said this year’s championships “wouldn’t have been possible without the closely synced relationship between Chad Hall Racing and the Chevrolet engineering team.”
“It has been very rewarding to field vehicles that are so well engineered,” team owner Chad Hall said. “The tests and refinements made over the years with the Colorado ZR2 and the new Silverado ZR2 absolutely prove the adage that racing improves the breed — making the production vehicles stronger and more capable because of it.”
The 2022 Chevy Silverado ZR2 made its official debut earlier this year and will begin arriving at dealerships early next year. The Silverado ZR2 offers similar equipment to the Colorado ZR2, including a redesigned front fascia that offers improved approach/departure angles, red-painted tow hooks, Multimatic DSSV dampers and off-road wheels and tires, among other go-anywhere equipment.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more Chevy Silverado ZR2 news, Chevy Silverado news, Chevy news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
Worth noting what basic requirements make up the 1200 and 7300 classes.
And are the Raptor and TRX running in separate classes? How’d they do in comparison?
A bit more info here Andrew: https://bitd.com/racing-classes/
The 1200 class is for factory stock production trucks only, which can you read about here: https://bitd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CT-Class-1200.pdf
The 7300 class is for unlimited small/mid-size trucks. More info here: https://bitd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CT-Class-7300.pdf
To answer GMC Fan’s question, factory stock production versions of the TRX and Raptor do not participate in this series.
I can only say that’s a big waste. Let’s go back to trucks are classed by 2-wheel drive or 4-wheel drive. Bring your best driver. It’s kind of like Corvette racing its team mate. Race the other car. EV’s have a class by their self’s.
Always hate how the classes have names like “pure stock” when they are obviously not stock trucks. You can just look at the picture and tell those tires are way bigger than stock. And even worse they won’t even fit on a stock Colorado. Springs are different. Dampeners can be different (although they are dssv in this case, but it is unclear if they are they same dssv the come on the stock truck). And so on. It’s the same drive train, chassis, and frame. Just call it mostly stock.
It’s the stock ZR2 with an additional ~$25,000 in GM Performance parts. Those parts are available to the public. It’s interesting how the newer version of the truck has an array of parts from the Bison edition, but it’s not the Bison. Good job GM on winning two classes. Unfortunately, they also got last place as well.