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It's November 1989. Over the last few years, the C4 Corvette made a name for itself after utterly annihilating the competition in SCCA Showroom Stock Racing, most notably Porsche.

Racing school owner John Powell sums it up: "The Corvette beat Porsche 29–0 from 1985 to 1987." And they weren’t just winning - they were often finishing in the top 5 to 8 places.

The races were so one-sided that SCCA banned Corvette from the competition entirely. SCCA instead agreed to support a separate Showroom Stock series dedicated purely to Corvette, known as the Corvette Challenge Series.

As the name implies, these race cars are essentially showroom stock Z51 cars, with only safety equipment, race exhaust, tires, and livery separating themselves from their street car counterpart.

The idea of owning a race car on the street sounded fun for some, but for other buyers, the world-class handling wasn't worth the harsh ride quality. The traditional Corvette buyer doesn't like to compromise - they want to have their cake and eat it too, so the idea of settling for the base model wasn't embraced with enthusiasm.

Chevrolet acknowledged this, and in 1989 the company introduced a solution that promised to give Corvette buyers what they really want.

But as a shiny new Polo Green model arrived at our headquarters, we were skeptical.

Has the Z51 lost some of its edge? Is the C4 starting to show its age against the new Japanese heavyweights as we enter into the '90s?

We headed to the track to find out.

These were our impressions...
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Tires:
BFG G-Force Comp 2
General G-Max AS-05
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00:00 Intro
01:41 Specifications
01:59 Z51 Story
04:49 Skidpad
08:45 Race Track
13:54 Road Test