Alas, maybe even the concept of the factory as boring has changed. These days, GM has one individual hand-building each of the 505-horsepower LS7 engines found in the Z06 model. And the engineers traded notes with the racing side on how to build a production Corvette capable of achieving 200 mph with some stability. Hence, the smaller greenhouse of both the C6 and Z06 that makes them compelling versus the styling competition in Europe.

If nothing else, the Corvette Racing program has re-focused the world on road-going supercars in a way that’s relatively practical for manufacturers. In addition to the Astons, two Saleen S7R’s, a Lamborghinni Murcielago R-GT and a Ferrari 550 Maranello took on the Corvettes at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

From the perspective of a racing journalist, the greatest accomplishment of the Corvette program is making people forget the ill-fated Cadillac prototypes. One can argue correctly that the attempt by Cadillac to race at Le Mans that began in 2000 and ended so poorly helped changed the perception of the brand in a way that an advertising budget double the size of the racing budget could not. Alas, racers think in black and white, win or lose, not in the abstract. So the silver Cadillacs are not remembered fondly, even if they signalled a complete makeover for the brand.

The Corvettes, winners of five of the last seven Le Mans 24-hours in the GT1 category, have helped GM promote its image as a world class car builder in a way that impresses the racing people as well as the guys in the board room. And, it’s more than image. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the Z06 ranks as the best sports car in the world, because it is so relatively light, well-mannered, powerful and accessible in terms of cost.

Ever the cynic, how can I be so certain there’s such a close connection between the C6, the Z06 and the C6.R race car? For starters, the rulebook at Le Mans demands a deriviative from the production body, chassis and suspension. But that’s not the clincher. If the key to the Z06 is the 7.0-liter, small block engine, then it’s a no brainer when it comes to the racing connection.

In a race such as Le Mans where the various makes are brought to the same horsepower level by air restrictors, the rule of thumb has always been go for higher displacement even though the restrictors get smaller. (This has much to do with a Swiss named Bernoulli, whose principle of physics indicates the air speeds up more in the venturi of a smaller restrictor, which facilitates more power from a larger engine on the other end. I wouldn’t know the guy, except that racers keep talking about him.)

When the Corvettes first arrived at Le Mans, the challenge was to beat the Dodge Vipers, powered by 8.0-liter engines. According to Joe Negri, the GM engineer who spearheaded the decision to add one liter displacement, a 6.0-liter V-8 would not get the job done versus the Viper’s larger V-10. The last time Chevy had produced a 7.0-liter engine, Junior Johnson’s race cars were on the receiving end. But it was not until Negri said, “We’re going to use the small block to do it” that I couldn’t believe my ears.

Subsequently, the 7.0-liter has now appeared in the Z06. It’s hard to imagine the production side tackling this project on its own. But if the racers could build a 7.0-liter small block that could sustain itself long enough to win the 24 hours at Le Mans, why not build one for the road? “When we started to look at upgrading the LS6 (engine), the first thing we did was sit down with the race group and talk about what they had done to build a 7.0-liter small block,” said Dave Muscaro, a GM Powertrain engineer.

OK, what about the C6.R and the Impalas that will race at Sonoma?

Last year, Pratt & Miller, the engineering group that fields the Corvettes, suggested some front suspension geometry that worked quite well in the winning Chevy of Jeff Gordon. It seems that under funding from GM Racing, the guys at Pratt & Miller created the mothership of a computer simulation program — based on the factory’s Corvette Racing program. This computer program was funded in part to help build road cars like the Z06. This same program also helped provide the framework for creating a database for the Pratt & Miller engineers (40 strong) working in North Carolina with the NASCAR teams.

Now granted, this sort of information is hard to track for any journalist and it’s more difficult still to determine just how that simulation program may have helped Jeff Gordon on the road course at Sonoma. So we’re back to that old saw about racing and production-based race cars. The people involved will tell you anything to sustain or justify the budget that keeps them racing. Alas, I happen to know the source well and he wasn’t looking for publicity.

Although it’s likely to change in the very near future, you don’t see too many of those “racing improves the breed” stories any more. When it comes to winning on Sunday and selling on Monday, it also bears pointing out that they’re racing Impalas these days, because the car they used to race, the Monte Carlo, wasn’t selling enough models. And NASCAR hasn’t had any fundamentally new technology since the days of Junior Johnson.

It’s all about the corporate nameplates these days not only in NASCAR but also in F1, which continues to struggle with the concept of production-related technology versus technology for the sake of winning races that fans may or may not relate to production vehicles. F1 has become the automotive version of celebrity marketing.

All this, in fact, may lay the groundwork for the further elevation of the Le Mans 24-hour and its associated series, the American Le Mans Series and the Le Mans European Series. Most recently, Le Mans has scored home runs with its rulebook and the arrival of diesel prototypes from Audi and Peugeot, cool race cars with green technology. Lightweight Porsche prototypes and alternate fuel Hondas (possibly with compressed natural gas) are in the wings.

So Le Mans may indeed re-invent the old saw. (”Win on Saturday/Sunday, sell on Monday.”) When it comes to the Corvette developed for the Le Mans rulebook’s GT1 category, there is no problem selling all of the cars produced, especially the Z06, and that includes Europe. Having road-tested the Z06 recently, it makes one proud to be, well, an American on the open road with the incredibly supple power of a 7.0-liter, hand-built V-8.

Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jingram666@cs.com.