In the drag racing world, where things are won or lost on hundredths of a second, 10 years is a lifetime. When Dave Green’s monster ’76 Corvette first hit the track in its new guise at the start of 2006, jaws dropped; as a testament to the car’s design and build, they still drop equally much today — or they would do, if the car wasn’t stuffed in the back of a shed gathering dust.
After going on to win two back-to-back NZDRA national championships, essentially, the car didn’t get changed at all over the peak of its racing career, with Dave saying that the only thing he did was to develop the fuel and ignition timing. This saw the car run into the 6.5-second zone on what Dave says was a very soft tune-up. With no real ignition control and an injector that was too small, the car’s trap speed was always low for its ET, running around 213mph instead of the mid-220mph area you’d expect for a 6.5-second pass.
Luckily, the car made up for it with stellar first-half performances and 60-foot times in the low one-second zone. Due to personal commitments, including crewing for three other supercharged alcohol cars, Dave parked the Corvette around five years ago, in theory intending to come back a few seasons later.
As we know, though, nothing ever goes to plan, and that was exactly the case for Dave and the Corvette. When it does come back, it’ll be essentially the same Chev big block–based combo but with updated technology. When that happens, we’re sure the drag racing world will once again stand up and take notice!
Images: NZV8 archive
This article originally appeared in the February 2016 issue of NZV8 (Issue No. 129). Grab yourself a print copy or a digital copy of the mag now:
