Buy a New Corvette and Get Two Days at Driving School

Until Feb. 28, anybody who buys a new Corvette will get two days of race driving school so they can actually learn the full capabilities of their American sports cars. It’s an offer that was previously available only to purchasers of the Corvette ZR1 – the best Corvette on the road.

GM ostensibly is making the offer, it claims, to mark the upcoming Corvette Racing season in the American LeMans Series. It probably has something to do with overcapacity and less people buying Corvettes during the winter months.

Until now, GM says the Corvette Driving School offer has been a benefit limited to the purchase of the exclusive Corvette ZR1 “supercar” model. For a limited time, it is available to buyers of any new Corvette model, from the Coupe and Convertible, to the Grand Sport and Z06 models.

It’s a pretty sweet deal if you buy an entry-level Corvette for $48,950. Chevrolet’s official driving schools are the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving near Phoenix and the Ron Fellows Performance Driving School at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch outside Las Vegas.

The two-day Z06 experience class at Bondurant is going to set you back $2795. At Ron Fellows, the two-day ZR1 class is $2995.

Are these classes worth it? Absolutely. While covering a Jaguar Performance R Academy for owners of XF-Rs and XK-Rs, an instructor demonstrated what happens when the stability control is turned off. One owner, a Princeton professor, asked, “Does my car have that?” The man had dropped $80,000 on a high-performance car and had no concept of its capabilities.

Think of it this way. You'll probably be able to drive your base Corvette as well as somebody without the training who owns a Z06.

Buyers have one year from their delivery date to take advantage of the opportunity. Eligible customers are responsible for their own accommodations and travel, but receive access to the schools and two-day tuition for free. Customers who purchase a new Corvette ZR1 model during the program period will receive an additional third day of tuition.