How Does the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Fare Against an Actual Race Car?

The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 wasour 2023 Performance Vehicle of the Year. After accepting the award, we asked Chevy to let us borrow one for a couple months. Here's one of the things we did with it.

A funny thing happened along the way to me driving our long-term Chevrolet Corvette Z06/Z07 on the Radford Racing School track: Porsche chickened out. No really. For the first time that anyone can remember, Porsche "declined" to let us borrow a 911 GT3 RS. Sadly, Porsche's reason why checks out: Our plan was to pit the German street-legal race car against an actual race car, Amir Bentatou's 1991 Acura NSX, for the upcoming holiday episode of our show Head 2 Head Drag Race. Sure, it wasn't actually a fair fight. The NSX's engine has been replaced by a 700-horsepower Honda K20 unit, and the weight's been pared down to just over 2,100 pounds. Oh, and Amir, co-host of theMotorTrend showSuperstreet Garage, is a national Global Time Attack champion. But still, whoever heard of Porsche getting cold feet? Well, joke's on the Germans, as the Acura broke, and Amir was forced to bring his also K20-swapped Lotus Elise (which looks like an Exige because he bolted a roof on it). We never asked Chevy what they thought about the Lotus. Ah, the joys of long-term car stewardship!

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Prepping the Z06 for the track

Nevertheless, we were sure to have our Corvette Z06 properly prepped for the occasion by having our local dealer put the Z06 into its track setup. This includes pulling off some aero bits, an alignment, lowering the vehicle, and burnishing the huge brakes.

Actually, that last bit fell in my lap. If you've never burnished brakes before, the general idea is that you're matching the pads up to the rotors. The procedure is mostly done to eliminate squeaking, though for high-performance stuff you want to make sure the pads and rotors interact perfectly. How do you do that? Well, for the Z06 I had to perform 20 deceleration runs from 60 mph to 15 mph while applying 0.8 g of pedal force. Luckily, like most racey cars these days, Corvettes have a screen that shows you the amount of deceleration you're generating. After completing those, I then had to perform another 12 decels from 60 mph to 5 mph, also at 0.8 g of braking force. The last step is to then drive at 60 mph for 10 miles without touching the brakes. Boring? Yes, though enough of a challenge that I didn't fall asleep.

The final part of the track setup is to drop the tires down to 30 psi each (cold), which of course I totally forgot to do for the first half dozen laps. Our 2023 Performance Vehicle of the Year winner is (obviously) a fantastic track tool, but as I built up my speeds, I found myself noticing that the front end was getting squishy. I came into the pits and dropped the front tires down from 40 to around 28 psi. Boy, did that sharpen our Amplify Orange Tintcoat beast right up! I wasn't experiencing any bad or unwanted behavior at the rear of the Corvette, so I left the back tire pressures where they were, about 40 psi.

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PTM Perfection

Part of what I love about GM performance vehicles is its Performance Traction Management (PTM) system. Not to be confused with the Corvette's standard chassis/damper settings (Tour, Sport, Track, Weather, My Mode, and Z-Mode), PTM offers five preconfigured settings for the traction and stability control, electronic limited-slip diff (eLSD), transmission, brakes, and engine output. PTM in the Z06 consists of Wet, Dry, Sport, Race I, and Race II, or you can of course always choose to run everything off. Because the last time I drove this track was in 2006, I decided to go for Race I. What's the difference between Race I and Race II? Both modes turn traction and stability all the way off, but Race II gives you the maximum available engine power, whereas Race I limits the big flat-plane V-8's output in certain situations.

Like every vehicle equipped with GM's eLSD, the traction the Corvette Z06 can put down from just two wheels is near magic. It simply bounces off corners—an instance where many other cars would be caught out. What's also fantastic is that the latest and greatest iteration of GM's Magnetic Ride Control is so damn dialed in that when you do blast off rumble strips, there's almost no drama. Yes, you feel the wheels moving about, but the Corvette itself never feels unsettled. Our Z06/Z07 has the optional FE7 suspension, which means thicker front and rear anti-roll bars, plus stiffer springs front and rear. The results are wonderful and great fun to drive.

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My gosh, that engine

You think I was going to skip over the engine? Fat chance! The 670 horsepower and 460 linear, naturally aspirated lb-ft of torque make up a wonderful recipe for a track-day special, especially in such a relatively light machine (3,686 pounds on our scales). Not having to wait around for turbochargers to do their thing is awesome, and the Z06's snappy eight-speed dual-clutch transmission is a perfect powertrain pairing. Not only did I do all the shifting myself, but because of the Z06's big, legible head-up display, I also didn't have to look down to see the tachometer. Keeping your eyes up and looking forward is huge on a tricky track.

Back to the lovely, lusty LT6 (Chevy's name for the Z06's 5.5-liter flat-plane crank V-8). Even though it's quite literally the most powerful naturally aspirated production V-8 the world's ever seen, I'm always left wanting more power. That's the nature of racetracks. However, its power delivery is exceptional. It's just so responsive and free revving. Even on a relatively small track like Radford I could hit triple digits in a spot or two when the track configuration allowed. Thankfully, the Z06 is outfitted with what have to be among the top three best braking systems ever fit to a production car, so stopping was never even sort of an issue. Even earlier in the day when the front end was a little squishy due to the overinflated tires.

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On Track With the Z06

I spent day one at Radford familiarizing myself with both the car and the track. That last part proved semi-important, as the video guys decided to switch layouts on me. On day two, the track, located in Chandler, Arizona, just southeast of Phoenix, was about 25 degrees cooler in the morning than it was the afternoon before. I went ahead and lowered the rear tires down to about 30 psi, still leaving the fronts at 28. As well as the Z06 was sticking, after talking to some Chevy folks and a few friends, I became convinced it would stick even better this way. With Amir's Lotus looming, I would need as much stick as possible.

I've never competed a time attack before, but I was familiar with the concept. Long story short, you head out for one lap and cross the start/stop line at speed, starting your lap. Then you go as quick as you can because you only get one lap to post a time. Amir and I were allowed to do a bunch of warmup laps before things got cooking. The Z06 felt just as outstanding as it did the day before, and I convinced myself that the cooler air would result in even more power. The track configuration was switched up in two places for better camera angles versus my practice on day one (which was a bit of an annoyance, seeing as I'd done at least 25 laps in a different config the day before) but nothing major. I decided to go ahead and run PTM in Race II and again, everything felt great.

Go time, and I put down a pretty beefy lap. I had one spot I over-braked and probably cost myself at least a second and another where I was running a stupid line because my brain was still set to the day before. I hadn't really stopped and thought about Amir's Lotus until I watched him doing his frighteningly quick practice laps. As far as I could tell, his car made about 400 horsepower and weighed less than one ton. That's a pound per horsepower figure of about 5.0, compared to 5.5 pounds per pony for the Corvette. Plus, the Lotus is on slicks and has much wilder, more effective aero. Also, Amir's a Global Time Attack national champ. I, on the other hand, am not. That's why (Spoiler Alert) when Amir beat me by less than two seconds, I felt pretty good about it—his prepped Lotus' time of 52.96 seconds versus 54.69 for me and the plastic car from Kentucky. The bigger point is this: The 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Z07 is one hell of a fantastic track car.

For More On Our Long-Term 2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06

• Listen Up—Simple Pleasures in a Supercar
• Finding Mountain Road Nirvana on the Cheap
• Detroit vs. L.A.! An Incredibly Dumb Scavenger Hunt
• Is the Z06 Grandma-Approved?