Half-Mile Corvette Makes Wild Run

When a 1,800-horsepower car runs out of grip at 200 miles per hour, things get sketchy in a hurry.

We’ve seen some monster land-speed builds from Georgia’s LSxperts this year. In July, a Corvette they built ran a jaw-dropping 229 miles per hour in the half-mile. At the WannaGoFast Georgia half-mile event, another customer found his 200 mph ‘Vette a handful.

The driver, Chris Abeln according to the LSxperts Facebook page, discovered the traction limits of Heaven’s Landing Airport. The Clayton, Georgia, landing strip looked dusty, and grip, well, there just wasn’t much of it.

Nevertheless, Chris put his 1,800-horsepower monster through the speed traps at 201 miles per hour with BigKleib34’s cameras rolling. That came even with the car struggling for traction off the line. Things only got crazier from there.

In the car’s second run, Chris suddenly found himself fighting the runway for grip while running almost 200 mph. Maybe he experienced a little rear-end lift, maybe the dust on the runway was just that problematic, or maybe it was a little of both. Either way, the onboard footage shows him sawing at the wheel big-time.

With speeds that high, that can make some serious driver-suit stains. Chris gets out of the throttle and gathers up the Corvette before anything untoward happens. And he still pocketed a 170 mph time slip.

How did he follow up that wild run? With his fastest time of the day, of course. The Corvette absolutely howled through the traps at more than 205 mph in his final run. He told BigKleib the car still had upwards of 20 mph left in it, but the racing surface just wasn’t cooperating.

No doubt he’ll be back and we’re excited to see that silver bullet trigger the traps with a higher number.