Cheap Corvettes Are Becoming the New Normal in Pro-Am Drifting
Cheap Corvettes Are Becoming the New Normal in Pro-Am Drifting
C6 Corvette was purchased for very little, and has required very little in the way of upgrades to be a competitive drift platform.
Motorsport operates in tiers. Think about it, before you hope into a Formula One car, drivers have to work their way up, from karts, to Formula Vee, perhaps, and then, through years of work, drivers can get into a Formula Three car and, eventually, they might get a shot at driving in F1.
Drifting is no exception. While we all see the pros of Formula Drift on TV, tearing up the pavement, there has to be a ladder to get to that point. After all, FD cars all make around 1,000 horsepower, have race-prepared chassis, sequential transmissions and near-as-makes-no-difference 80 degrees of steering angle. Trying to manage that around corners at over 100 MPH while banging on the doors of the competition in tandem drift is a lot to take in. That’s why Pro-Am exists, where drivers can hone their talents, and, hopefully, prove their stuff to sponsors and earn their pro license. Few Pro-Am programs in the United States have more visibility than the Lone Star Drift program out of Texas. Run by Aaron Losey, their program is broadcast all over the internet for people to watch.
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Normally, the Lone Star Drift YouTube channel has Losey commentating over the various competitions he organizes. However, in this episode, we learn a bit more about Losey, himself, and his C6 Corvette. It’s an LS2-powered C6 coupe that he bought for a very small sum of money because, well, it’s a beater. Normally, the words “beater” and “Corvette” aren’t used in the same sentence, but with base C5 and C6 ‘Vettes being so cheap, people with the means are starting to view them in that light.
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For Losey, he purchased this salvage title Corvette to slide it around on the track, during the Lone Star Drift events. So, how does a relatively stock C6 work as a drift car? Actually, rather well, as Losey explains.
Throughout the video, we see video clips of Losey tearing up the pavement sideways in his C6, and then the video cuts back to a repair shop. Losey walks us around the C6, which he says has modified knuckles, for more steering angle, and a few tweaks done to that LS2 so that it produces around 400 WHP. Other than the car running hot, which he suspects might be intentionally done by GM to improve emissions, it absolutely rips. Losey explains that he is finally upgrading the cooling system on the car, with an aftermarket radiator, to bring water temps down. Other than that, he claims, the car really doesn’t need anything.
This is obviously a big change from the typical import drift car, where, often times, the stock powertrain needs to be upgraded, or replaced entirely, to be reliable and make decent power on track. By the time an engine swap is done, and the chassis is setup to handle the new engine, it’s often more costly than just buying a near-stock Corvette, in the first place. So, Losey summarizes, it would seem that an inexpensive Corvette is a great idea for drifting. We’re still on the look out for the right, cheap Corvette to take to the track and slide with, because it looks like a lot of fun.
