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An All-American Effort

Away from the start in 1952, Cunningham (#1) gets boxed in by other cars, but he and Bill Spear recovered to finish 4th.

Sixty years ago, an American sportsman built his own cars to tackle the world’s greatest endurance race

Many in America today see road racing as more a sub-genre of motor sport, with the nation thoroughly consumed by oval racing on tracks that seem to dot the continental 48-state landscape with the same frequency as major retail chains and fast food restaurants. For the most part, only those who dare to dream on a very large scale with little fear of challenging the world on a global level even dare to think about road racing, let alone attempt to launch an all-American effort to compete against the best machines and manufacturers the world has to offer.

In recent years, America has witnessed such an effort by the factory-backed Corvette Racing squad. Based in suburban Detroit, Corvette Racing has won the production-based GT1 class championship of the American Le Mans Series seven times, as well as tacking up a handful of class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race that remains the indicative test of any sports machine and the men who rally behind the effort.

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