Corvettes turn out in force for the WeatherTech Challenge at Road America

This huge race-fest in mid-July draws an outsized share of Corvettes to “stretch their legs” on the long 4.1mile circuit outside of Elkhart Lake Wisconsin.

 11 Corvettes held sway over a 40-car field in Group 6 race for historic big bore production cars.

# 88 Rick Mooney in his 1968 big block coupe and # 37 Clair Schwendeman in his 1968 roadster were on “cloud nine”, finishing 2nd and 3rd.  Fast guys Mike Donohue reportedly went off course in his # 33 1963 roadster and the engine failed in Jody O’Donnell’s # 46 1969 big block coupe that was re-built after a “no fault” crash with Brad Hoyt (see below).

# 15 Travis Pfrang 1969, # 73 Colby Hillman 1969, # 969 Robert Gee 1969 and # 94 Chris Ronson 1970 finished in the top half of Group 6.

# 6 Brad Hoyt ran this 1966 roadster following the write-off of his big block 1969 in a freak crash that happened in 2021 at the HSR Mitty at Road Atlanta (see above).

Rather than face the mercy of Group 6, # 163 Nick Groose, # 9 J.P. Griffith, # 5 newcomer Jason Woita and other pilots of C2 Corvettes opted into Group 3C for vintage sports cars.  As did # 68 John Malmquist “not getting any younger” in his 1969 C3.

The solid axle Corvettes of # 24 Bill Treffert 1960 and # 23 Avery Stuckart 1956 were not outclassed in the least. 

# 3 Pierce Marshall topped a 30-car field in Group 9B for Modern GT Production cars in his 2015 C7.R with Dan Binks, former Pratt & Miller crew chief on hand.

# 26 Chas Wicht was in the hunt driving a recently acquired 2016 C7 GT3R designed in Canada and manufactured by Callaway Competition in Leingarten Germany.

# 77 Gunnar Pfrang ran his 2004 C5 SCCA GT1 tube-frame built by Rick Dittman who also drove a newer 2017 GT1 tube-frame at this event.

This # 57 C1 1957 restored fuelie sporting Dagmar style headlight covers was displayed by Rick Mancuso, a past participant at Road America.  It was reportedly raced by Art Redford in California.

Photos courtesy of Kevin Bowman