ince the Corvette’s earli-
est days when it started
to compete in road racing
against imported sports
cars such as Jaguar, Aston
Martin, Porsche and Ferrari, to name
a few, a major concern developing the
Corvette for competition was the quest
for better brakes.
The Corvette has come a long way since
the early days of square metallic pucks on
drum brake shoes. So much so, in fact, in
2014 on Motor Trend’s list “Fast Brake: 20
Best 60 to 0 Distances Recorded by Motor
Trend” pitted against the world’s best, the
Corvette stopped in the shortest distance.
It’s a high stakes game at that level
where mere inches count. The 2013
Audi RS5 coupe came in 20th at 101 feet
and in 2nd place, behind the first-year
C7 Corvette, was the 2013 Porsche 911
Carrera S at 93 feet. The pack of mostly
2013-model year participants included
Ferrari, Ford Shelby GT 500, Aston Martin,
Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, BMW M3, Lexus
LFA and Nissan GT-R.
And, of course, all cars tested were OEM
standard equipped with ABS, the saving
grace of all weekend warriors and boy rac-
ers that have exceeded their driving skillsat one time or another. It’s the retention
of ABS and not even having to bleed the
brakes that makes Baer Brakes’ options
to upgrade a C6 braking system so DIY
friendly.
We heard Baer’s R&D guy Dutch Miller
had a C6 convertible in Baer Brakes R&D
shop located at its humongous Phoenix
manufacturing facility, so we made a
banzai run out to Arizona and followed
along as Dutch upgraded the rear brakes,
followed by completing the two uprate
options available for the front brakes.
As Baer Brakes describes, “The
EradiSpeed+1 rotors are a two-piece designBY JOHN GILBERT (^) I PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE AUTHOR
C6 Deceleration:
Upgrade Options
Big-Brake kits that won’t make you bleed
[ TECH]
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