Special UK races planned to celebrate the Corvette's 70th anniversary

Standalone contests are planned at two special US-themed events – the American SpeedFest at Brands Hatch in June and the second running of the US AutoShow fixture at Oulton Park in August – while Corvettes are also set to have a strong presence on the Thundersports grid at the rebranded Silverstone Festival at the end of August.

The races will be open to the initial C1, C2 and C3 Corvette models. Sprint races for the cars will be held at Brands and Oulton, while the Silverstone race will be a mini-enduro.

The Corvette contests will be organised by the team behind the successful Bernie’s V8s & Historic Outlaws series – who also plan to create a fun atmosphere in the paddock – and they have been amazed by the amount of interest generated.

“We’re such Corvette fanatics – we’ve been racing Corvettes for a long time,” explained Simeon Chodosh, who is set to join father Bernie and brother Adam racing Corvettes on the same grid for the first time.

“My dad started racing a Corvette, that my brother and I have been sharing, about 35 years ago. We always thought we would put on this 70th anniversary race and see what happens.”

Jean-Charles Votta's Corvette C2 is set to race

After getting support from MotorSport Vision Racing to organise the grids at the US-themed events, a website was built and an enquiry form created for those with Corvettes interested in taking part.

To date, 45 drivers have expressed interest in competing, the majority being those with C2s and C3s. The list includes cars from across Europe and beyond, with the organisers helping owners to transport their Corvettes to the UK.

“We know the power of social media but we never expected anything of this magnitude – you would be hard pushed to find a full grid of early Corvettes even in America,” added Chodosh.

“The response we got from all around the world was just incredible. We had the first car from America sign up last week and there are plenty of cars from Europe.

“This is a history-creating moment – there’s not going to be another big anniversary for Corvettes like this and it’s never been done before in this country.

“The Classic Corvette Club is going to bring up to 250 Corvettes at Brands Hatch and we’ve been speaking to GM Heritage.”

Chodosh added that they opted to limit the races to the older Corvettes to provide “close battles” that would not occur if more modern cars were also eligible.