The brand new Hall Racing / Chevrolet Performance Colorado ZR2 #7330 suffered a massive structural failure during the 2023 Mint 400. Despite the damage, the truck still finished the race first in its class.

Late last night, a photo was posted to the GM-Trucks.com Chevy Colorado ZR2 Facebook group showing devastating damage to the all-new 2023 Hall Racing Colorado. Introduced earlier in 2022, this was the first Mint 400 raced on the new Colorado platform for truck number #7330.

Hall Racing ZR2 Failure - Mint 400
The Hall Racing Colorado ZR2 Still Finished First In Class – Credit “the_xcalibur” on Instagram

The photo was originally posted by “the_xcalibur” on Instagram

GM-Trucks.com reached out to Chevrolet and can confirm that no one was hurt, and surprisingly the 2023 Hall Racing ZR2 still finished the race first in class.

Chevrolet Provided GM-Trucks.com with the following statement: 

The Silverado ZR2 ran a flawless race and took first place at The Mint 400. Despite having some rear-end damage on the pre-production frame, the Colorado ZR2 also finished and took first place in its class. The Mint 400 is notoriously one of the most grueling off-road races in the world. Chevy competes in racing to help develop, test and prove durability of its products in conditions far beyond what most customers would experience.

Additional info:

7330 – Chad Hall (driver) Waqas Shafi (Co-driver) – Stock Production Truck Mini/Mid

  • Finished 1st in class – 6:39 min elapsed time.  Colorado ran 2.6 mph faster for the 1st lap compared to 2022 (32.1 vs 29.5 last year).
  • 7309(Jeep) Finished 2nd , 7319(Tacoma) DNF
  • Team continues its streak of completing every mile of 38 consecutive off-road races

Shad Balch – Director, Chevrolet Communications 

So what happened? Why did Colorado ZR2 #7330 “break?” We’ve learned from a confidential source who is familiar with the truck that the issue is most likely traced back to the mounting point for the roll-cage, which was attached just forward of the rear shock jounce bumpers. This caused an extraordinary amount of stressed leverage on the frame. There were also several hundred pounds of additional equipment and a fuel cell in the bed. If these assumptions are correct, it’s no wonder the frame gave it up. The source speculated that the roll-cage mounting points would be revisited and that the frame was pre-production. This all means that regular production ZR2 should never have this issue during normal driving conditions, on or off-road. The source also confirmed the 2023 truck has been competing as equipped since mid-2022 and traversed over 1,000 harsh off-road racing miles without any issues before this failure.

During the many years that Hall Racing operated the previous generation Colorado on the world’s toughest off-road courses, no complete failure similar to this ever occurred to our knowledge. GM-Trucks.com rode along with Hall Racing During the 2020 Mint 400 and can confirm the track is harsh, unforgiving and that failures similar to this happen dozens of times each year to other competitors. Finishing the race is an accomplishment all of its own.  Watch our video below if you need to see why: