Chevrolet’s Silverado has made its off-road racing debut at the Laughlin Desert Classic stage of the Best in the Desert Racing series.
The Silverado race program follows the success of the Colorado ZR2 in off-road racing. Like the Colorado, the Silverado race truck will be used for engineering development and validation.
“Off-road racing is just brutal on vehicles and a single race puts more wear and tear on trucks than most vehicles will experience in years,” explained Mark Dickens, chief engineer, government programs, performance variants, parts and motorsports, Chevrolet. “That makes off-road racing a valuable testbed to evaluate new components.”
The Silverado race truck started as a LT Trail Boss model, powered by a 420hp, 6.2-liter V8 mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission.
Significant vehicle changes include long travel suspension, front and rear jounce shocks, and a set of prototype high-capacity Multimatic Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSVTM) dampers.
This damper technology was first used in an off-road application with the factory Colorado ZR2, followed by the ZR2 race truck. For the Silverado race truck, the dampers have been scaled up for greater wheel travel and control.
“This is the next evolution of the DSSV off-road damper,” said Michael Guttilla, executive vice president, Multimatic Engineering. “We’ve taken everything we learned from the Colorado ZR2 program and scaled it to deliver next-level performance in the Silverado.”
Other prototype parts on the Silverado race truck include front and rear jounce shocks, rear shock skids, 35in off-road tires and skid plates covering the transfer case, steering gear, rear differential and front underbody.
