Andrew Alepa debuted his gorgeous C7 Corvette in the balls-out slugfest that is Radial vs the World, with hired wheelman Rob Valden at the helm, a couple of weeks ago at Donald Long’s Lights Out 7. Bucking the growing trend of bolting radials under a Pro Modified or building the typical, though often successful — Mustang, Alepa opted to purchase a showroom-stock C7 ‘Vette, spend a day or two chauffeuring his wife around in it, then delivered it to the wizards at Rick Stevens Race Cars, who immediately laid out a plan to deliver the work of art seen before you.
Upon delivery, Stevens’ crew carefully disassembled the Chevrolet flagship hot rod and went to work building a full tube chassis upon which the swoopy stock bodywork resides. Anchoring the chassis is a monster billet Tim McAmis rear end housing, a setup that would be right at home between the rear tires of any Pro Mod.
Up front, a 548 cubic-inch “Outlaw” Hemi provides approximately all of the horsepower, thanks to the monster pair of 102 mm Precision Turbochargers and FuelTech’s innovative fuel-management system.
The car had not seen a track surface before the Alepa crew made the haul from Texas to South Georgia Motorsports Park for the biggest radial event in history, but you couldn’t tell that by the numbers they put up. After a few planned shut off runs, Valden let the gorgeous maroon monster loose for the full 1/8-mile and lit the boards with a 4.05, good enough to make the quickest field in Radial vs the World history.
Valden would duplicate the 4.05 ET, coupled with a searing 199 mph trap speed, in round one, taking the win and moving to round two. Unfortunately, he left before the tree was activated in round two, ending the team’s first outing. However, with less than 10 passes under their belt and already knocking on the 3-second door, the Alepa team will be a force to be reckoned with as they fine-tune this beautiful machine into a hemi-powered assassin!
Many thanks to 1320 Video for the awesome footage!