New Chevrolet Camaro to pace Indy 500

The Chevrolet Corvette's five-year reign as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 has come to an end.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway said on Thursday that the pace car for this year's race will be the reborn Chevrolet Camaro. The pace Camaro is painted silver with red graphics.

This will be the fifth time the Camaro has paced the 500-mile race on Memorial Day weekend. It was last used as the pace car for the 1993 race.

The pace Camaro is powered by a 6.3-liter V8 rated at 426 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. The engine is mated to a six-speed manual transmission.

The only changes being made to the production Camaro for pace-car duty is the addition of strobe lights.

The Corvette had been used as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500 for six of the past seven years. Chevrolet's two-seat sports car has paced the Indy 500 10 times--the first being the 1978 race. This year's race is scheduled to be run on May 24.

By Dale Jewett