The 1978 62nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 - Paced by a 1978 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe!

The 62nd Indianapolis 500 was held on May 28, 1978. This was the 25th anniversary for the Corvette, and Chevrolet introduced the most extensively redesigned Corvette since 1968. Twenty Five years after the birth of "America's Sports Car", the Corvette finally got a chance to pace the Indy 500 in 1978.  Jim Rathmann drove the Corvette Pace Car to lead the field to the start of the race.

The car came standard with a 350 ci. (L-48) 185 hp motor. An optional 220-horsepower, 350 ci engine (L-82) was available. It was the first Pace Car in history to use an entirely stock drivetrain.

The 1978 Corvette was driven by 1960 Indy 500 winner Jim Rathmann, his fifth time at the wheel of the pace car.  Rathmann, who started his racing career in hot rods, gained his greatest fame at Indianapolis and Monza, Italy. He drove in 14 Indianapolis 500 races and led the field at some point in six of them, including the 1960 race, which he won after a sensational battle with Rodger Ward. Rathmann also finished second at Indianapolis in 1952, 1957, and 1959, and set new one-lap and four-lap qualifying records in 1960. His other accomplishments included runner-up honors for the 1957 National Championship and victory in the 1958 Monza 500 (run in three segments) at an overall average speed of 166.722 miles per hour. In 1959, he scored an impressive triumph in the 100-mile United States Auto Club Championship race on the brand new 2.5 mile Daytona International Speedway where he completed the distance in only 35 minutes and averaged a phenomenal 170.261 miles per hour. Rathmann also drove stock cars from time to time and was the third-ranking driver in the 1955 American Automobile Association point standings.

Although only 300 Corvette replicas were originally planned to match the production number of the 1953 model, Chevrolet eventually had to produce 1 for approximately every dealer for a total of 6502.

This was the first year that Camaro's supported a Corvette Pace Car and were used in the 500 Festival Parade as well as other Festival events this year.

The race winner for 1978 was Al Unser, driving his First National City / Chaparral Lola / Cosworth.

This year's 500 Festival Queen was Sherri Lynn Kalbrier.