Corvette Racing: What Separates This Team From The Rest

The most successful sports car team in North America. You’d be right to assuming winning is cemented in the Corvette name. Here is how they do it.

Pratt & Miller Engineering and Fabrication, also known as Corvette Racing, is not your average racing team. They have a track record to prove their dominance in the ridiculously competitive world of professional racing.

Eight 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, 16 IMSA championships, 82 American Le Mans Series wins since 1999. In 2015 they claimed the Endurance Racing Triple Crown (winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same season).

During 2020, the inaugural season of the C8.R chassis, the team managed to bring home the IMSA GTLM Manufacturer, Team, and Driver championships. That is like hitting a jackpot on your first try. What does it take to be that good? More importantly, consistently that good?

Thanks to Mobil 1 The Grid‘s YouTube channel, we got a chance to take a sneak peak into the team’s home in New Hudson, Michigan, to see where and how the magic is made.

Pratt & Miller – where championships are won

Brandon Widmer, the Vice President of Motorsport at Corvette Racing, gives us a definitive tour of their stunning 125,000 square foot facility.

The team from the jump puts on display their absolute autonomy: design, manufacturing, testing/development, and racing operations are all operated out of this facility.

No outsourcing for any work of any kind while limiting potential supply chain and communication issues is without a doubt is one of the team’s strongest qualities.

The active race cars are built and prepped for each individual event in their racing bays. Grant Weaver, Operations Manager at Corvette Racing, makes their capabilities clear, “we have whatever it takes to compete at a high level in racing.”

In addition to the primary New Hudson facility, the team also manages two more in Michigan, along with another in North Carolina and another in Huntsville, Alabama.

The shop is truly adept to solve essentially any issue. Division occurs across different bays: the machine shop, the composite/carbon fiber shop, the race shop, and the electronics shop.

Drivers have access to state of the art racing simulators to help prep for events and balance car setups.

Widmer describes this as defining a true constructor, “we design the cars, build the cars, and race the cars, which isn’t super common in sports car [racing].”

Specialization is one of the keys makes the Corvette Racing team really move like clockwork. There is an impressive combination of designers, fabricators, engineers, artists, and mechanics all working toward the same goal: winning races.

The results of this cohesive work ethic is displayed proudly in their epic showroom by a myriad of trophies collected across decades of dedication and perseverance.

Unending dedication and embedded culture – the breeding ground for success

Flexibility is also expected of team members. Widmer states “most people on the Corvette Racing team wear multiple hats. Truck drivers don’t just drive trucks. They are either mechanics at the track or they handle tire changes… everybody has multiple jobs around here.”

Thus, “all the mechanics are cross-trained to be able to other people’s jobs”, whether they build brakes or design carbon fiber pieces, each individual will be able to perform much more than their job description.

This way in case of an issue or complication occurs with one part of the unit, it will not bring down the whole team in time of emergency. This is the Corvette Racing team’s secret to success: being a strong cohesive unit while remaining adaptable to the unknown.

• “We work to track the best of the best. The smartest, brightest, the most driven people that really subscribe to our culture and want to work as one unit. We have been very successful in the last 23 years using that culture and building the entire company around that culture. It’s something we find critically important to our success.”

We believe you Mr. Widmer, the results speak for themselves. Want to take a wild guess at who is currently leading this 2021 season so far? Yeah, they are that good!