Thompson first sampled a Corvette in 1954, when he drove one in practice on a circuit laid out at Andrews Field, an Air Force base outside Washington, D.C. Despite its relatively poor power-to-weight ratio and two-speed automatic, he was able to achieve lap times comparable to the Jaguars and other fast cars present.
It wasn't until 1956, however, that he took up racing a Corvette for real. At that point he had already won two SCCA national championships in a Porsche, and at the beginning of the season many of the other racers laughed at his decision to campaign a Corvette. Their laughter did not last long. He consistently ran roughshod over the competition and by season's end was awarded the SCCA C-Production national title.
Thompson continued his winning ways in 1957, winning his second national championship in a Corvette. His third national Corvette title came in 1960, driving Bill Mitchell's Sting Ray in C-Modified. The machine Thompson labels "the most beautiful race car I ever drove" finished an astounding 30 points ahead of the second place Ferrari.
Thompson's fourth and fifth national titles came back-to-back in 1961 and '62 while driving for the highly successful Gulf Oil team. "By 1961 no other production car could keep up with a Corvette," he remembers, "and the Gulf Corvettes were as good as they possibly could be. It got to a point where if anybody had a faster car we'd protest them because it was impossible to beat us legally,"
At the same time he was racing Corvettes, Thompson also served as a test driver and consultant for Chevrolet. He was instrumental in the development of better brakes, suspension components, engines, gearboxes, and a variety of other parts that transformed Corvettes into dominant racing cars and awesome street machines. Thompson's innumerable contributions to the car's development are a lasting legacy that can be found in every Corvette made since 1956.