This one-of-a-kind Corvette C8 drifter is all show with plenty of go

Field has been competing in Formula Drift since 2010 and is known for his intense, unrelenting driving style. In last year’s season, he scored many podium places and came second in the Championship.

The Corvette’s remit is a showcase for the team’s workshop skill as well putting on a show at events like the Festival of Speed. “We pride ourselves on building a pretty darn good racing car,” said Field, “but this is on another level completely. We built this car knowing that we’re not going to just go out, crash the crap out of it, and run it into each other. So we spent a little more time with it.”

That’s quite an understatement. The Chevrolet LS engine is built with a whole host of bespoke components to allow it to rev to 9,500rpm and get into a four-figure power output. And that no-compromise philosophy continues throughout the whole car. 

“The perfect example is a fuel cell,” Field explained. “Most people who build a racing car choose from a ton of different fuel cell options available. You buy one, and then you make that fit in your chassis. We went the opposite route. I said, ‘This is exactly where I want it, this is exactly how big I want it’.

"And we're very fortunate that Chris, a CAD engineer for my suspension partner Part Shop Max, was donating a lot of his time into this, so he would design the radiator, the fuel cell, the suspension, all this stuff to be precisely bolted into this car once we got it. Every single thing, we decided to do it the hard way, because I wanted it perfect.”

The Corvette was launched at the SEMA show in 2024 and it has since spent its time going from event to event to put on a show. A hectic schedule means that there has been little time to dial in the car’s handling. “It gets worked on at the shop, goes in the trailer or the container, shows up to a very big, high-profile event, and you gotta hop in and drive the wheels off the thing.”

Field had only one test in the car before it made its public debut at Grid Life, a circuit and music festival, at Road Atlanta. And Field jumped in at the deep end in a similar manner at Goodwood, which was the destination of his first trip to the UK. 

“Thursday was our first run and I’m like, ‘Alright, should I take it easy? Should I figure out where I’m going? Yeah, that's probably a good idea’,” he said. “Once I started going, all that went out the window and I was hanging on for dear life. This is not a drift track. It’s very narrow and I have a very wide drift car. It’s incredibly challenging, terrifying and exciting all at the same time.”

Threading his way up the narrow Goodwood Hill while putting on a spectacle is made all the more difficult because the mid-engined Corvette has some tricky characteristics. “A well set-up drift car drives like a well set-up drift car,” Field said.

“However, each car has its own little nuances that make it special. There are all these little things that an experienced drift driver will pick up on, on a certain chassis. Normally a car will have one or two special things that you're like, ‘Oh, you have to do this when you drive this car.’ This car has a lot of those little things.” 

The light front end is the cause of one of those nuances. “If you’re left foot braking a little too much, it’ll lock up the wheels because the front end’s so light. And then, as soon as it locks up the wheels, you lose where the steering wheel is at. So it's very difficult.”

And the mid-engined traction means the car gains a lot of speed when transitioning from one drift to another. “This is the biggest thing I noticed,” Field explained. “As it goes across centre, at that moment, it’s like somebody puts you in hyperdrive. It goes from drifting around the corner and feeling like a drift car. Then as it passes the centre, boom, we’re going.”

The result is a much higher road speed for the next drift. “It is just so incredibly fast. It’s fast in drift, it’s fast in a straight line, it’s fast around a corner. It’s just an all-round fast chassis.”

The high specification and perfect presentation is in stark contrast to the state the Corvette was in when Field bought it. It was virtually new with just a few hundred miles on the clock, but it had been flood damaged. He bought it from an auction and knew that there was enough about it that would put off other bidders that he could get a bargain-priced starting point for the build.

And it’s a bit of history, as it was a similar story with his previous Corvette, a front-engined C6. “That was a white flood-damaged car from the east coast, and then this current car was a white flood damaged car from the east coast, so we have a little bit of a pattern going.” Field speaks with fondness for that car, too. “It is so completely dialled in. It’s like putting your right shoe on.”

Will the C8 be dialled in and put into hardcore competition? That had been the original plan, but Field is having too much fun using it for non-competitive events like the demonstration at the Festival of Speed.

“I told myself we'd spend a year doing demos and developing it, and then go into competition. But I’ll tell you this, I would rather do events like Goodwood in that car, year after year after year, until they're tired of seeing it, versus putting it in competition and not having the ability to send it to events like this because it’s away for most of the year.”

Looks like it’s not the last we’ve seen of it, then.

The 2027 Festival of Speed will take place on 15th-18th July 2027, sign up for ticket alerts to make sure you don't miss out. Tickets are available for GRRC Members and Fellows, you can join the Fellowship today.

Photography by Joe Harding, Charlie Brenninmeijer, Tom Baigent and Sam Milton.