Corvettes fill the field in the WeatherTech at Road America

The annual WeatherTech Challenge with Brian Redman is considered by many as the top vintage race in the USA for the month of July.  The event culminates on Sunday with 7 laps for each race group around the 4-mile circuit at Road America situated just outside the resort town of Elkhart Lake WI.

In Group 6 for 1960’s big displacement sports cars, 12 Corvettes prepared to various levels of performance (translates to money) comprised one-third of the field.

# 1 Scott Borchetta, # 46 Jody O’Donnell, # 30 Mike Donohue, # 37 Clair Schwendeman and # 88 Rick Mooney finished in the top ten.

# 9 Thomas Weglarz and # 5 Travis Pfrang were in the middle of the pack.

# 81 John Rische, a local enthusiast who has not raced for several years, and # 35 Luis Guerra making his first appearance, finished near the back.

Engine problems plagued # 63 Patrick Sessions and # 68 John Malmquist who did not make the start. 

Same for # 73 Harry Dinwiddie who crashed hard avoiding a back-marker on a wet track during Friday practice.  Harry worked all night to get it running only to break a rear axle storming from last in the Qualifying race.

# 77 Gunnar Pfrang raced his ex-Rick Dittman C5 TA/GT1 in Group 10.

# 24 Bill Treffert finished mid-pack in Group 3 in his modified 1960 straight axle.  It has a host of performance upgrades since Jim Melton of Bo Tye Racing turned it into a racer a long time ago.

The celebrated marque was 30 of the late Dan Gurney’s race cars.  Word is that Dan raced a Corvette back in 1957 as he embarked on one of the most phenomenal racing careers of all time.

 Photos courtesy of Kevin Bowman