This weekend, the 2027 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X takes on “The Race to the Clouds,” a dash to the summit of Pikes Peak—a 14,115-foot Colorado mountain road with zero guardrails and 156 corners.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has tested drivers and machines under brutal high-altitude conditions since 1916. This year, a 2027 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X driven by IndyCar veteran and professional racer JR Hildebrand looks to break the all-time production car record.
With 1,250 combined horsepower from its twin-turbo LT7 V8 and front-axle electric motor—delivered through an intelligent eAWD system—the Corvette ZR1X has run the quarter mile in 8.675 seconds and set the fastest official Nürburgring lap ever recorded by an American manufacturer in a production-spec car.
GM News caught up with Hildebrand, who was dialing in the car with the Corvette engineers ahead of race day on Sunday, June 21. Tickets to view the event in person are available on the PPIHC site, where you’ll find live timing information throughout the weekend.
What follows is an abridged version of a conversation between GM News and Hildebrand, edited for clarity.
GM News: What makes the race so challenging, both for driver and machine?
Hildebrand: It’s a 12.42 mile course with 156 corners, where the start line is at 9,400 feet of elevation and the finish is in the clouds at 14,100 feet. The nature of the circuit itself is an enormous challenge.
And then, you string these corners together up the side of a mountain where the exposure is real, you know, the risk is really overt from that perspective. The altitude and weather are hard on the cars and drivers too; many cars each year simply can’t make it up the hill.
GM News: The ZR1X has a twin-turbo V8 paired with a front electric axle. How is that powertrain responding to the specific demands of the mountain, like the thin air, which can affect cooling and impact engine power?
Hildebrand: Even during practice at 11,000 feet, it was just so in your face how powerful the Corvette ZR1X’s front axle was, and how much of a difference that electric motor was making in terms of the handling of the car, the ability for the car to get out of the course’s hairpins.
You just feel the front drive unit literally pulling the car up out of the corner into the ICE power band—and then it gets on the turbos and hauls the mail all the way up to the next corner. First run on the mountain, at kind of half commitment or whatever, I was like, ‘This thing is gonna rip here.’
As far as I’m concerned, this is the perfect weapon. You don’t get any of the downsides of existing at altitude. The ZR1X has got altogether a relatively small battery and it just does an incredible job of regenerating and deploying energy.
GM News: You’re running in the hybrid production class, but also competing in the production category more broadly. What’s the goal at the end of the day?
Hildebrand: Our goal is very simple, which is to be the fastest production car ever at Pikes Peak of any kind. 9:53 is the outright fastest production record of any kind. That’s definitely the number that we are unquestionably here to top. My goal is to lay down a heater that will be hard for anybody else to come after anytime soon.
GM News: The car you'll be driving at Pikes Peak offers essentially the same performance as the car you can buy at the dealership. Crazy, right?
Hildebrand: That’s the other thing that’s so cool about it. We’re already like right there in the mix with full-on race cars on racing slicks. And we’re still running a totally stock production exhaust on this thing, and the Michelin Cup 2R tires that this car just comes on from the showroom floor. We’re showing up to the race, within the regulations, with a car that you could literally go walk down to a Chevy dealership and buy.
