There’s been a sense brewing the last few weeks that, perhaps, the special Garage 56 entry Chevy Camaro NASCAR Cup car at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans won’t just be a rolling chicane around the track. During the first test session there was a sense that perhaps it could be as fast as the Aston Martins, Porsches, and other “real” sports cars running around the track. Nope. It isn’t. It’s faster. It’s freaking faster.
If you haven’t been paying attention, the Garage 56 entry at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the special invite given to cars that don’t fit in a traditional class and therefore wouldn’t be able to compete in the race. Everything from DeltaWings to hydrogen-powered cars have been invited to run. A NASCAR stock car wouldn’t normally make sense, but the current generation of NASCAR stock car is actually more similar to a DTM or V8 Supercar chassis than the old-style NASCAR setup, meaning it’s capable of running on a quasi-street circuit like Le Mans (or Chicago, where NASCAR is going this summer for its first street race).
This is mostly a fun sideshow at the race, but Hendricks Motorsports is running this sideshow they don’t half-ass anything. The driver mix is F1 Champion Jenson Button, NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson, and Le Mans-winner Mike Rockenfeller. You want proof they’re taking this seriously? Every year the different teams have a pit stop challenge (it’s a long two weeks) to see which crew is the quickest. I’ve watched a dude try so hard to win this that he hit himself right in the nuts with an impact wrench. It’s a big deal.
Pretty much every car running at Le Mans in recent history uses airjacks that automatically lift the car up. Garage 56 is a stock car, so it runs a real jack and has a “jackman.” This should be a detriment to the team. It is not. Check this out, they not only competed, they actually won the challenge!
Le Mans has two categories of cars: Prototypes and GT cars. The prototypes are purpose-built race cars that don’t look anything like a production vehicle. The GTs are more traditional cars and are all based on real cars. The single GT category this year is made up of Porsche 911s, Ferrari 488 GTE Evos, Chevy Corvette C8.Rs, and Aston Martin Vantage AMRs. Because the Camaro ZL1 NASCAR entry is in Garage 56 it’s technically not in the class, but that’s what everyone is going to compare in terms of times.
It was hard to say how fast the Camaro would actually be, and most people I talked to initially expected it to run mid-pack in the GT class. In the first testing day the car was extremely competitive, within a few seconds of the other fastest GTE cars. Of course, testing (and even early practice) at Le Mans doesn’t mean that much. Because the GT classes have a Balance of Performance (basically, they try to keep the cars roughly equal in terms of speed), all the cars sandbag in early practices so they don’t get hit with extra weight or fuel/air restrictions. This was my concern. It turns out, it was the Camaro that was sandbagging.
One place where racers pretty much don’t sandbag is in qualifying. So here’s how qualifying turned out:
That’s right, the Camaro driven by Mike Rockenfeller did a lap time of 3:47.976, which is about four seconds faster than the closest Ferrari (a quasi factory program from AF Corse). That’s fast. The fastest lap any GT car did last year during the race was a Ferrari that managed 3:49.109, presumably at night. There’s one more qualifying session for the fastest cars, which they call hyperpole, but it’s already clear what the fastest non-prototype car is.
It will not surprise you to learn that the 24 Hours of Le Mans can be fairly political and there’s a lot invested in this car doing well. It’s not technically competitive with any of the other GT cars and therefore doesn’t have to worry about the same regulations or getting hit with BOP adjustments. It’s good for NASCAR if the car is competitive and it’s good for Le Mans if a bunch of Americans suddenly care about the race. Additionally, WEC sports cars have power levels in the 500s, while the ZL1 has a good ol’ American made NASCAR 5.8-liter V8 pumping out 750 of the Lord’s Own Horsepower, although it’s bigger and less aerodynamic.
Around the track, word is that the big V8 scares the delicate European campers as it goes by and no one is sure how anyone near the track is going to sleep.
I can’t wait.
Photos: NASCAR/Hendricks Motorsports
I’m not into Nascar or LeMans but I love a good underdog or usurper story. I hope this thing exceeds people’s expectations and I’m sure it will sound glorious in the process.
But what happens if it rains, the Nascar sissies can’t run in the wet.
They have RAIN TIRES now! https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a43607810/nascar-finally-used-rain-tires-on-an-oval/
I still think the original idea for this was to run a hybrid system that could be used in the cup car on a regular basis. But the response by owners and fans pushed that back. I wish they would have gone to Toyota and Ford about this little project
I know they would have had to pay for this photo, but I love this picture for showing what the field looks like with the 56 in the middle of it.
One of these things is not like the others…
That looks like those M6 GT3 photoshops with a behemoth beside small race cars
I have never been much of a fan of NASCAR, but this whole thing is pure brilliance. Get me some apple pie cause I’m feeling plenty American!
it brings me infinite joy that the one thing that might actually unite us all as Americans, all supporting a common awesome cause…is a bitchin’ Camaro
I love seeing this but let’s keep some perspective. All the other race cars would be much faster if they removed their air restrictors, required extra weight, electronic detuning, and didn’t care if they finished the race.
I mean are we really too shocked by this? The car isn’t beholden to any rule structure at all. It’s cool and all, and I’ll be watching to see how they fare over the day, but I don’t know what to make of it exactly. It’s kind of like when Porsche set the absolute ‘Ring record in the 919 that was built with disregard to any rules or regulations; what else was going to happen?
I finally saw this thing running some practice. And my god this thing was impressively quick. I was giggling watching some LMP cars having a hard time trying to pass it coming out of the corners. And no slouch in the corners either? I can’t wait to see more. This thing is what has always attracted me to racing.
It is a fun story, but it isn’t a stock stock car and has been lightened considerably and the engine tweaked. It’s also not a Camaro.
Lets be fully honest here. There is really nothing shared between the NASCAR Camaro and one that you buy off a dealer’s lot.
Better case in point. Toyota Camry NASCAR. They sure as shaving cream not running a FWD chassis and a 4 cyl engine and there is no V8, RWD, manual Camry produced by Toyota today.
Not since the 1960s has there been much connection between the racers and street cars.
Neither are the GTE or hypercars. They’re race cars. It started out as a stock car and was modified to run 24hrs at race speed. They aren’t there to get a participation ribbon , they’re there to finish ahead of as many cars as possible. The ACO is letting them start behind the LMP2 cars ahead of the GTE cars. That’s the respect garage56 has earned. They’re here to compete!
I was at Sebring for the LS7 Vettes, C5.R (beautiful) and C6.R (…car). Those V8s sounded, and felt, like the world was ending. I highly recommend standing near one at full chat.
All the racing bullshit is why some of us pine for the “old fashioned days”.
The car’s don’t go as fast as (non safety) technology or straightforward restrictions allow. That’s not a race, that’s not engineering prowess and driver skill under universal rule restricitons (weight, displacement, etc) that’s some A-1 premium grade bullshit.
Why watch a race becasue someone can get their pee-pee slapped because they made a RACE car (within the rules) that goes too fast?
If I wanted to watch European politics that were never going to end in a real result I could tune into the EU parliamantary happenings. Or better yet I could take a very satisfactory nap under a tree then do something productive with my life. Or take a pale yellow to the mat, mileage may vary.
Then it just comes down to which team has the deepest pockets. Teams would basically bow out than waste millions.
I’ll be watching. Hope it goes better than the 1976 effort.
IT’S BURN DOWN APPLEBEE’S GET IT RIGHT
(Unless France already did that for us. In which case…understandable. Carry on.)
Le Mans is the only race I regularly watch every year.
Hendricks has a good chance of seriously trolling Le Mans this year — not overall, but certainly in their class. That is not a stock NASCAR car. I believe it’s a bit under 3000lbs. Should be a very reliable power train, and Jenson Button and especially Mike Rockenfeller are not new to Le Mans. Given the car’s size, the main issue is going to avoid not colliding with some “gentleman driver” over 3000 miles.
Looking forward to this and the Cadillacs stopping anyone from sleeping this year.
Keep us updated! I only care about motorsports enough to read about them on theautopian.com. If you don’t tell me who wins the big race then I probably won’t know.
Oh. Also gm brass is not gonna be happy about a “Camaro” being faster than a “Corvette.”
Seems like GM already made their decision, smh
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/06/gm-to-ditch-factory-backed-corvette-racing-team-in-2024/
:'( This makes me sad.
I bet Ferrari are pissed.
*Schadenfreude*
Chad Knaus was wildly successful within the Nascar rules. Here he’s got pretty much free reign. So yeah.
Please tell me DW will be in the announcers booth at LeMans!
#boogityboogityboogity
Boogity boogity boogity allons faire la course! (DW probably)
“Allons faire la course les garçons!”
This makes me so happy and I’m looking forward to the race. I love that they won the pit stop competition with a manual jack. Reminds me of Jim Clark winning the Indy 500 with the Wood Brothers pitting his car.
Hell yeah – being something of a GM guy, I was already looking highly forward to seeing how Cadillac’s V-series hyper-cars run at Le Mans, this just adds to the fun!
The question now is if it holds up.
The Daytona 500 is, shocker, 500 miles long. The 2021 LeMans winner in GTE Pro did 346 laps – which is 146 laps more than the Daytona 500 and 2,429.5 more miles.
This. I don’t expect it to last 24 hours. If they do that will be quite an achievement though.
Making it 24 hours is damned unlikely IMHO. NASCAR engines, even in the ‘slightly detuned’ 750HP state, are only good for race distance plus 1 mile. They are not my engines. They’d have to take way more power out of it to go from 600 miles to nearly 3000.
I’m not discounting NASCAR’s engineers at all, mind you. But their expertise is in wringing 850HP and 10,000RPM for 500 miles out of a small block that’s already been engineered to within an inch of it’s life on multi-port injection. Forget the power; making it 500 miles on that glass cannon is no small feat.
But engineering an engine for 650HP and up to 9,000RPM for 50,000 miles? It’s an entirely different discipline. You can fake it till you make it for a road car by over-engineering the everloving shit out of it. Especially if you have infinite budget. But for race conditions on a block that’s been engineered and optimized for the exact opposite and hasn’t been tested to see how many miles you get going full braking to WOT every 20 seconds? <shrug!>
They talk a big game, and yeah, they logged a total 6,834 miles of testing. But zero of those miles were on Sarthe. Sebring is 3.741 miles, 17 turns, and pristine engineered pavement. Circuit de la Sarthe is 8.467 miles and 38 turns, and pavement is much more varied.
Honestly, at this point, I’m firmly in the ‘flip a coin’ camp. Especially since Hendricks has zero endurance experience and of all the teams in the world, NASCAR called in Action Express. AXR doesn’t have sportscar expertise! They’ve always been exclusively prototypes! (Seriously, GM couldn’t bloody call Pratt & Miller?)
There are two other issues I foresee both stemming from the classic problems inherent in endurance racing any heavy large displacement car: tire wear and fuel mileage.
A modern NASCAR racer weighs, by regulation, a minimum of 3300 lbs without fuel or driver.
A modern GTE weighs a minimum of 2,745 lb (possibly subject to Balance of Performance) including driver, fuel, helmet and liquids.
That’s a huge difference in weight, and physics says that’s also a huge difference in gas mileage and tire wear.
The NASCAR racer might have the fastest lap time, and the fastest pit stops, but are the margins enough to overcome needing an extra pit stop? Two extra pit stops? Three?
Good question. 1 second per lap faster is about 6 minutes overall. So 4 seconds per lap means 24 minutes of lead time. The garage 56 pit time was 10.3 seconds. Let’s say 30 seconds for some buffer and driver changes. If the lap times were representative of race times, they have enough buffer for 47 extra pit stops and still win. Or an extra pit stop every 8 laps.
you know they add a bunch of cast iron weights to the stock cars to get them to 3300, right?
You think they add 600 pounds of lead? Even if you COULD cut 600 pounds, remember that weight is without fuel and driver…. compared to 2745 including fuel and driver.
For the archives: the Hendricks car finished 39th overall, turning 285 laps in 24 hours. The LMP GTE AM class winner finished 26th overall and turned 313 laps. The overall winner was a Hyperclass Ferrari which turned 342 laps.
https://www.fiawec.com/en/race/result/4792
This care has been modified. Does not weigh in at 3300. Not going to be as light as a GTE so tires may be an issue, but people underestimate the tire technology and engineering ability of NASCAR. These are not good ol boys in the garages winging it. I am fairly certain they are smart enough to plan out the race.
Current nascar engines are wide bore spacing so they have cooling between the cylinders. That’s a huge improvement for a race like this. And they normally run around 280-290°f. My guess is one of the mods was to open more air flow and drop operating temps to mid 200s. I think it’s possible to get 3k miles out of it. The C6 production engine makes 670hp and I think it’s perfectly capable of doing that for 3k miles. So they should be able to build a race engine to match it.
Huhwut? Have you ever watched Sebring? It’s an old WW II airfield. It’s notoriously bumpy. The course still runs partly on old concrete sections of WW II era landing fields.
Came here to say this. I did a track day at Sebring in 2001 and it was rough then, I can’t imagine the last 22 years have been an improvement.
Even the parts that aren’t on an 80 year old runway are still bumpy. Sebring is not for the faint hearted and it’s long been said if you can survive 12 hours at Sebring, you can survive 24 at Le Mans. That circuit is TOUGH on cars.
You make a point about Hendricks & endurance experience.
There are of course other American teams that Do have plenty of endurance experience (Ganassi & Penske as 2 good examples).
Would be interesting to hear the back story on how Hendricks got involved
Shows your own misunderstanding and pre-judging. This version of car and engine will make 24 hours with ease. I will be sure to come back and point that out after the race. I live in the center of NASCAR city. Mooresville NC. Plenty of friends and fellow engineers in the shops here. I think you will be surprised.
While I am not a NASCAR fan, I wouldn’t be so quick to bet against Hendricks. My issues with the series are more about me feeling above it (yes, I know I’m the asshole), but when it gets down to it, they have some of the best engineers in the world who know those engines beyond intimately. Those guys work on the same engine design for decades and know their shit. If they want to get 3k miles out of a motor, I’m damn sure they can do it.
Who builds the engines for the Cadillac and Corvette endurance racing programs? ECR. Who is building the motors for G56? Hendrick/ECR.
They’ve already ran the car at Sebring for 24hrs straight at speed. They worked with Chevrolet on strengthening the valvetrain. Chevrolet has been doing and winning endurance racing for decades. This is basically a factory/Hendrick works team.
This is awesome to behold, and I can’t help but wonder (apropos our conversation the other day) if GM will later claim “yeah, this was always part of our big plan for the proper send off for the legendary Camaro!”
Bitchin’ Camaro! Bitchin’ Camaro!
Donuts at LeMans,
Bitchin’ Camaro! Bitchin’ Camaro!
That thing’s freakin’ gone.
NASCAR brought a bitchin’ Camaro
With no race class to match,
But when they blow your doors off,
Please don’t leave a scratch!
I know it’s not eligible to actually win anything but I really hope it finishes the race or at least makes it most of the way and doesn’t drop out by hour 2 or something like that. I’m knocking on the finest Ikea compressed sawdust as I type this in hopes of not jinxing their weekend.
It will not only finish but will do very well and stir up the locals. Wait and see.
FULL SEND!