Here’s what happens when you send a NASCAR stock car to Le Mans – Ars Technica

When Le Mans renovated its facilities in 2012, it built 55 pit garages for regular entrants in its annual 24-hour race and one more for entrants that want to demonstrate something new (there are actually a total of 62 entrants this year, but the special one is still called Garage 56).

These have included the pint-size Nissan Deltawing in 2012 and the closely related electric Nissan ZEOD RC in 2014. In 2016, quadruple amputee Frédéric Sausset did something neither of those two Nissans could manage, finishing the race in a specially modified prototype with the SRT 41 team, which repeated the feat with a pair of paraplegic drivers in 2021. And there have been attempts to run a hydrogen-powered racer from Garage 56. But this year’s entry is a bit different—and a little more familiar to Americans. It’s a NASCAR stock car.

It was certainly an incongruous sight as the NASCAR stock cars took to the track this weekend with the normal prototypes and GT cars at a test held before next weekend’s race at Le Mans. NASCAR stock cars are not exactly small, and they’re known for going fast in a straight line, not for their cornering prowess. There was even talk of trackside marshals waving a white flag—for a slow car ahead—to warn other competitors if they were going to encounter the stock car in one of the track’s more curvy sections.

That attitude was undeserved. Not only did the Garage 56 entry not embarrass itself, but it went more than two seconds a lap faster than any of the production-based GT cars. Not bad for a fish out of water.

This has happened before

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the world’s oldest motor races, and it’s a strenuous test for both people and machines. Over the years, Le Mans has attracted more than a few entrants from the USA. Cadillac sent a very odd-looking car nicknamed “Le Monstre” there in 1950. Ford, having been snubbed in its attempt to buy Ferrari, took the Italians on at their own game, winning four times between 1966 and 1969 with its GT40s.

And in recent years, production-based Dodge Vipers and Chevrolet Corvettes have repeatedly claimed wins in the GT classes. But the oddest American entry was probably in 1976, when the people behind NASCAR entered a pair of stock cars. The big, cumbersome V8s proved to be a hit with the locals, but neither car lasted the distance—low-octane gas saw one car’s engine fail on the second lap, and the other was out with a broken transmission by hour 11.

Links have remained close between the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, which organizes the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and NASCAR. The latter owns the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship for cars like the ones that race at Le Mans, so a bit of cross-promotion is never bad. And that explains why seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button, and German touring car champion and Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller will be racing their big blue beast among the more normal entrants next weekend.

While it will be racing on the same track at the same time as the other 61 cars in the race, the Garage 56 entry is in its own class, and it’s there to entertain the fans and hopefully finish the race rather than fight for overall victory. The drivers appear to be having fun, too.

Not quite your normal next-gen cup car

NASCAR introduced its Next Gen stock car at the beginning of 2022, and it was a big technological leap for the sport. Four-speed manual transmissions and solid rear axles are now things of the past. The new car uses a five-speed sequential gearbox, fully independent rear suspension, and composite body panels, and there’s even a smooth underfloor as opposed to the aerodynamicist’s nightmare that you’d see underneath previous cup cars.

While the Next Gen car can now handle turning left and right with equal aplomb, it wasn’t quite ready to take on the challenge of Le Mans without some mods. The most important of those was probably its weight loss—the Garage 56 car shed some 525 lbs (238 kg) compared to NASCAR trim.

Some of that is not having to carry mandated ballast, but there are now carbon-fiber brakes instead of steel rotors, and the Hendricks Motorsport organization (which built and is running the car) has reduced the mass of components wherever it can—unlike in the heavily controlled technical environment of NASCAR, there are no penalties in Garage 56 if you want to build a widget out of expensive-but-light titanium instead of the same standardized part as everyone else.

Other modifications have been made to help the Garage 56 stock car cope better with the demands of Le Mans. There are headlights—this is a 24-hour race, after all—plus side mirrors and a rear-view camera system that alerts the driver if they’re about to be passed by a faster car. The fuel tank has grown by more than 50 percent and now holds 32 gallons (127 L). The 5.8 L Chevrolet V8 is about 100 hp (75 kW) more powerful than a standard cup car, which puts it in the region of about 770 hp (575 kW), but it’s actually not the quickest car on Le Mans’ long straights. Blame the added aero appendages, particularly a rear spoiler (not a wing) that stands up 6 inches (152 mm) from the rear deck.

Instead, it gets up to speed rapidly thanks to a lot of torque, and it’s actually quite fast through the corners, surprising some of the other drivers, according to Button. It’s also not that much bigger or heavier than the GT class—the minimum weight for those cars is 2,745 lbs (1,245 kg), and the BMW M8 GTE that spawned a million memes was about as long and even wider than the stock car, albeit a little less tall.

Button’s teammate Rockenfeller was responsible for the car’s fastest time in testing—a 3:53.761 lap. By comparison, the fastest GT car was one of the Ferrari 488 GTEs, which went around the 8.4 mile (13.6 km) course in 3:56.088. So rather than being a rolling roadblock, it looks like the roaring stock car is more than capable of holding its own. For context, the fastest Hypercar lap was set by one of the two Ferrari 499Ps, which edged out one of the Porsche 963s and a Toyota GR010 to be the fastest hybrid, with a lap time of 3:29.504.