Watch a C8 Corvette Fly More Than 100 Feet Through the Air at Travis Pastrana's Dirt Playground
What would you do if you found yourself in possession of a free C8 Corvette and an open-world dirt playground to fool around in? Well, if you're the team behind Channel 199 on YouTube, you jump it five or six car lengths. You know, for science.
And against all odds, the team legitimately completed the jump. You can see the big highlight below, or watch the full 30-minute video farther down in the story to see the full background of how the team prepared for the stunt.
How'd this come together? Well, Travis Pastrana won a new Corvette Z06 competing in Cleetus McFarland's Freedom 500 event, then proceeded to sell it in favor of a regular Stingray for the stunt. It was, delightfully, spray-painted rather hastily in an American flag design with the stars on the front and stripes the rest of the way back. Pastrana was present throughout the planning — a smart move, considering he's a wholly qualified individual when it comes to jumping cars.
The real trick was getting the speed exactly right for the Corvette to fly far enough, but not so fast that it wound put on a trajectory to crash land. York needed to get the Corvette up to around 70 mph through a narrow dirt trail in the woods that led to a clearing with the ramp. After a couple of test runs, York did the final send.
Seeing it fly across the gulf, the Corvette almost looked like it might come up a tiny bit short. Thankfully, the rear of the C8 just cleared the ramp as the nose crashed down into the ground. York made it, but the impact was hard enough to cause the airbag to deploy, and it was a far closer call than anyone involved was likely hoping it might be. Deceleration up the ramp caused speeds to drop to about 64 mph on takeoff, which is the lowest speed that Pastrana hypothesized would work.
Conveniently, Pastrana was able to use Chevy's Performance Data Recorder to analyze speed, throttle and brake inputs with a video overlay. He thinks the jump can be done with no damage if he adds a little more speed to York's run-up and accelerates through the ramp. Pastrana even teased that he might climb in the car next to try it again... so there could be a second attempt at turning the C8 into a plane coming soon.
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