Zora Argus-Duntov at Daytona Beach
Zora Argus-Duntov was not a person to rest on his past successes. Immediately following his record setting performance at the 1955 Pikes Peak Hill Climb, Duntov began lobbying Chevrolet management on his vision of a Corvette capable of 150 mph. He was convinced that achieving that kind of speed would be a spectacular way to promote the performance of the soon to be announced 1957 Corvette. Ed Cole was supportive as long as Duntov could fit the Corvette assignment into his primary assignment developing fuel injection.
It didn’t take Duntov long to find a 1954 Corvette development car which he could use to test his ideas. To begin, he had the engineering shop remove the windshield, installed a tonneau cover over the passenger seat and added a belly-pan to improve the aerodynamics. In addition, they fabricated a tuned exhaust that Duntov designed himself. To Duntov’s dismay, the resulting speed was far short of his goal of 150 mph.
From his European racing days, Duntov knew that the camshaft was the one component that had the most potential to boost the engine’s output sufficiently to allow the Corvette to reach the target speed. Duntov’s new camshaft was quickly fabricated and installed in the test engine at Chevrolet Engineering where it achieved 240 hp at 6000 rpm. The car was shipped to GM’s Desert Proving Grounds in Mesa, Arizona where Duntov drove it to just over 156 mph. He had reached his goal and was now ready to attempt the record run under NASCAR supervision at Daytona Beach.
After almost a month of delays due to weather conditions, Duntov finally satisfied that the sand at Daytona was right for the record attempt, roared off down the beach course and into the record books. He averaged a two-way speed of 150.583 mph in the flying mile. An outstanding performance of a basically stock production sports car.
Duntov and the Chevrolet team returned to Detroit for a short break before the official opening of the Daytona Speed Week event. They took the opportunity to make several engine improvements that improved the Corvette’s power from 240 hp to 255 hp.
John Fitch and Betty Skelton joined Duntov on the Chevrolet team for the 1956 Daytona competition. All three drivers had their own Corvettes to drive in various events. Each car was decked-out in official American racing livery…… white body with twin blue racing stripes down the middle. Duntov drove in the modified class Corvette which featured special headlight fairings and a fined fairing behind the drivers head. Duntov had developed the driver’s fairing a year earlier on a 1954 Corvette test car at GM’s Desert Proving Grounds.
All three drivers achieved great success. Duntov had the fastest modified sports car in the standing-mile averaging just under 90 mph. A strong head-wind caused Duntov to fall just short of his previous two-way record, although he did hit 156 mph on one of his runs.
The success achieved in both Daytona events marked Duntov’s most successful efforts for Chevrolet to date. The “Duntov Cam” and Duntov’s engineering development of the Corvettes were recognized by knowledgeable experts as the reason behind the Corvettes outstanding performance. This acclaim did not go unnoticed and helped greatly to position Duntov for future success at Chevrolet and GM.
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