Smokey Yunick looks on as famed GM Engineer and ‘Father of the Corvette’, Zora Arkus Duntov awaits the Daytona Beach start on 1956…
Zora was always seeking to build the Corvette brand. Ford and GM were in a performance battle at the time, his GM paymasters were keen to support his attempt to top 150mph in an ‘essentially stock’ Corvette having just attracted considerable press with a class record run at Pikes Peak.
In the photo above Zora is in #A81, the car with the head fairing, and John Fitch in A82 behind.
Click here for an interesting Car and Driver article about this great engineer/racer: http://blog.caranddriver.com/the-story-of-the-bad-ass-who-made-the-corvette-an-icon-zora-arkus-duntov/
Three cars were prepared for the attempts at Daytona Beach in early 1956, they were driven by Arkus-Duntov, racer John Fitch, and aviatrix Betty Skelton.
These Daytona exploits are well covered in GM’s official history and an excellent specialist Corvette website, click on the links for good coverage, here: https://history.gmheritagecenter.com/wiki/index.php/Zora_Argus-Duntov_at_Daytona_Beach and here; http://www.illustratedcorvetteseries.com/1956_Corvettes.html#Anchor-Here%27s-47857
Credits…
Racing One, The Enthusiast Network
Tailpiece…
One of the Corvettes crosses the timing line on its southbound run…
Finito…
primotipo... 