[rpoz-29]

My Camaro has been a body shop for two weeks getting the top painted under warranty. It's a hardtop and this is the second time. I shouldn't have told them I was in no hurry. Anyway, I was griping about it during lunch at a "Street Survival" school I was helping with. Another club member overheard me and offered me a ride in his '02 Z06. WOW. I'm just kicking the idea around right now, but is there a year to stay away from? Any preferred years? Is a Z06 that much better than a standard Corvette? Just wondering!

[ledfoot2]

I can tell you that I raced a F-body for many years, then bought a FRC Corvette to keep up with my buddies and their Z-06's. The difference is pretty substantial. The Vette is much more percise. The difference to mee seems to be the amout of power that you can transfer to the ground coming out of turns and the stability under braking. These are both functions of the weight distribution and the suspension differences.

I am now running a F-body again. The reason is for the money, you can't beat them. If you are going to road race a Corvette with any modifications, you will be in one of the top classes. If your there, you better be ready to spend a lot of cash to run. This is a much bigger factor than the initial price. I ran 305/30/18 fronts and 335/30/18 rear Hoosiers. They lasteda weekend. Go price a set of those. In American Iron, I am running a set of 275/45/17 Toyo R888's. Check the price on these. I have heard that they should last at least two weekends. Check prices on cages, suspension pieces, wheels, anything.

Look at the cars that are in the class that you expect to run in and calculate how much you think it will be to build your car to that class. If it is a stock class, then you might be ok.

I loved my Corvette, and it was definately faster......but speed per dollar to run it was not even close to the F-body.