Katech Corvette Z06 at the YouTube Callout Drag Race

The Katech Corvette Z06 shows that road racers can get down the drag strip as well.

Jason Harding’s C7 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 was built to be a road racer, but last weekend, the Katech crew took his bright red Vette to Cecil County Dragway for the StreetSpeed717 YouTube Callout Drag Race Day. This event was comprised of many of the biggest names in the world of YouTubers with fast cars, hosted by Corvette Z06 owner StreetSpeed717. Although Katech is a world-renowned road-racing engine builder, they were invited to bring their Corvette Z06 out to Cecil County for a match race with StreetSpeed717 – setting up a battle between two very different C7s.

Off to the YouTube Callout Day

The video from the KatechPerformance YouTube channel begins with the Katech crew making the drive from Michigan to Maryland, eventually arriving at a gas station where many of the competitors are mingling before heading to the track. Once at the track, the cameraman spends some time walking around, giving us a look at some of the other competitors in attendance – including “Leroy”, the bodyless, twin-turbocharged Corvette of YouTuber Cleetus McFarland.

While the video focuses on American cars (and one truck) storming down the quarter mile, we can see that there is a wide variety of high performance cars in attendance for the YouTube Callout day.

Onto the Racing Action

Around the 6:30-mark of the video, the racing action begins with the Katech Corvette Z06 making a test run in front of the massive crowd. After a short burnout, Harding eases his Vette away from the starting line before hammering the throttle and while we don’t know what he ran, the car sounded great as at roared down the track.

We then get to watch a diesel-powered Chevrolet Silverado HD, a 5^th gen Camaro ZL1, a couple of Dodge Hellcat cars, the Leroy Corvette, a first gen Camaro, an 80s Buick and a pair of Chevelles make their runs before setting up our main event – the race between the Katech Corvette Z06 and the Z06 of StreetSpeed717. Jason and Mike (StreetSpeed717) talk for a bit before hitting the track, but around the 15:30 mark, the real action begins.

On the first run, StreetSpeed717’s Corvette with the automatic transmission gets away from the line a little quicker than the Katech Z06 and the race is effectively over. While the Katech car might have more power, the combination of the manual transmission, the extreme aero bits and the soft launch allowed the other Corvette to take the win.

On the second run, Harding had issues in the burnout box which led to launch problems, allowing the host of the event to win both of these head-to-head Corvette drag races.

This is what Katech’s Jason Harding had to say about the event:

“My car is not designed for drag racing.  It was built as a road race car.  It has big aero and a manual transmission.  But I wanted to see what it could do so I installed a set of drag radials and took it to the event.  No other changes were made.  I also didn’t want to launch it too hard because I already own another C7 Z06 with a broken differential. I also purchased StreetSpeed717’s old C7 Z06 that broke the differential at the last YouTube Callout.  So with a soft launch, the car had a best ET of 10.67 and mile-per-hour in the 134 to 135 range.

You can really feel the aero hold back the car on the top end. I lost twice to Mike as his new automatic transmission shifted much faster, but it was an amazing opportunity to get out and meet so many people while enjoying a day of racing, and the crowd loved the Z06 vs Z06 match-up,” Harding said. “The whole Katech team is looking forward to next year’s event, and so am I.  We’ve also even been talking with Mike about putting together a road racing version of the event here in Michigan.”

Even though the Katech Corvette Z06 didn’t win its match races, this video is still a great way to kill some time at work on a Friday. Grab a drink, crank up your speakers and enjoy this video detailing the Katech Corvette’s trip to the YouTube Callout Drag Race Day.