2019 Corvette ZR1 Track Driving Triggers OnStar, Operators Start Calling

BY Dan Mihalascu | Posted on

Have you ever driven your car so hard that the in-vehicle emergency service called to check up on you?

The answer is probably “no”, yet that’s exactly what happened to race driver Andy Pilgrim while he was driving the 2019 Corvette ZR1 on the NCM Motorsports Park road course in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Pilgrim was really enjoying his track session in the 755 hp ZR1, when all of a sudden he got a call from GM’s OnStar emergency-assistance service.

Apparently, the system got triggered in the tight S-turns entering the front straight. Something about the way Pilgrim negotiated those turns didn’t seem right to the car’s virtual brain, and the driver soon found himself talking to an OnStar representative while really going at it in the ZR1. As he brakes from 148 mph (238 km/h) to negotiate Turn 1, an operator is heard on the line.

To his credit, Pilgrim was unfazed by the amusing distraction and continued to drive the ZR1 as hard as possible while trying to convince the OnStar people that nothing was wrong. “No, we’re on a racetrack,” he says as an operator asks if anyone was hurt and assistance was needed.

Interestingly, OnStar kicked in not once but three times during one lap. The last intervention happened just as the ZR1 crossed the start/finish line to complete the lap, giving the driver the opportunity to explain he was just having some fun on a closed course.

Chevrolet engineers couldn’t explain exactly why the track session activated the OnStar emergency service. However, it’s safe to assume the combination of speed, yaw angle, G load, as well as longitudinal and lateral acceleration/deceleration rates can trick the system into believing the vehicle had been in an accident.

Interestingly, Chevrolet told Automobile Magazine that, in the many miles of ZR1 testing, this has only happened with Pilgrim behind the wheel and only at the NCM track. Which is a bit weird, since we assume its test drivers have also pushed the ultimate ‘Vette to its limits.

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