Ricky Taylor, Rast and Farano set for Tower LMP2 team at Le Mans

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emailBy Stephen Kilbey | March 26, 2023 10:22 AM ET

IMSA star Ricky Taylor will team up with fellow pro racer Rene Rast and Canadian Bronze-rated driver John Farano for the centenary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours in June aboard a Tower Motorsports ORECA, as the team bids for Pro-Am honors in the LMP2 class.

The ORECA 07 Gibson will be entered under the Tower Events Vaillante banner and rely on assistance from one of the team’s IMSA LMP2 rivals, TDS Racing, which will be taking part in the 24 Hours for a 12th consecutive year in 2023. As part of the effort, the car will compete in a livery sporting the colors of the popular French motorsport comic series “Michel Vaillant.”

“Le Mans is the one race of the year that every driver wants to participate in, and being able to join a powerhouse team such as Tower Motorsports with TDS Racing is really a great opportunity,” said Taylor, who adds this drive to his full-time IMSA GTP program with Wayne Taylor Racing and Acura. “Anytime TDS have competed at Le Mans, they have been one of the cars that everyone knows will be fighting for the win. We have one goal and that is nothing less than winning Le Mans and it looks like we have all of the pieces in place to be able to do it.

“Getting to know John over the past few months has been really nice — he is very focused and has the motivation and competitive drive to go out and win this race, and as a teammate that makes me very happy. I’ve also been a fan of Rene for years, he’s one of the quickest guys out there and it’s a huge win to have him on the team.”

Three-time DTM champion Rast, like Taylor, brings a wealth of Le Mans experience to the team for the event, as this year’s race will be his fifth attempt. Three of his previous four starts were in the LMP2 class, his highest finish coming in 2016 when he finished second with G-Drive Racing. His other start came as part of Audi’s LMP1 effort, in the brand’s final three-car Le Mans entry back in 2015.

“I am very much looking forward to this race and I am thrilled to be joining Tower Motorsports with TDS Racing for the event,” said Rast. “Le Mans is one of my favorite races and it always feels good to be able to come back, especially for the very special 100th anniversary this year.

“I think we have a very solid and professional team behind us, in addition to a strong driver lineup, so I am greatly looking forward to competing in this event again and hopefully challenging for the win in our class. I can’t wait to jump in the car for the first time in Monza to test this machine. I’m looking forward to getting started.”

The 100th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours will be held June 10-11.

 

Omologato commemorating LM24 run with special edition Centenaire watch

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emailBy RACER Staff | May 9, 2023 5:45 AM ET

This year we’re delighted to announce that #TeamOmologato is racing at the 100th 24 Hours of Le Mans!

To celebrate this special date in our history we’re making just 250 Collectors Editions of the CENTENAIRE Chronograph Collectors Edition.

Customers who secure one will be given the opportunity to have their name on the Nielsen Racing race car and, subject to final confirmation, be able to collect the watch at Le Mans from the drivers (pending final approval for this event).

We’ve had such an overwhelming reaction to being involved with the 24h race at Le Mans this year that we needed to expand our activation. Say hello to Nielsen Racing, who is the perfect match.

Nielson started as one car, one truck and a winning Radical European Masters campaign. Eight years and five championship titles later, Sven Thompson and the Nielsen Racing team face their third 24 Hours of Le Mans after earning the team’s first entry on merit.

After breaking all the records in the Asian Le Mans, Nielsen Racing steps up to LMP2 in European Le Mans for the team’s best season ever in the series, only missing the podium on the first round and earning our first ELMS race winning team trophy – and third place in the championship.

“Proud to step up our involvement at Le Mans this year with Nielsen Racing. It’s a great team run with the same values that I run Omologato” said founder Shami Kalra

“We are very happy to partner with Omologato for the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans and the racing season. It’s always a pleasure to collaborate with a brand with shared values and passion for what we do best: racing fast and fair.” said Sven Thompson, owner of Nielsen Racing.

 

Nascar Returns To Le Mans! All The Details

Formula Jonah
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75,292 views Apr 10, 2023 #nascar #hendrickmotorsports #wec
Nascar is returning to Le Mans in 2023! After a 46 year absence from the 24 Hour classic, a Nascar will compete in the experimental class at Le Mans! Hendrick Motorsports and Nascar enter the Chevy ZL1 and this is all the details on the one off entry for Le Mans, including the internals of the car, Garage 56, the driver lineup, and much more!

 

Inside NASCAR's 1000HP Le Mans Camaro!

Need 4 Speeding
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30,601 views Nov 29, 2022
NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports have joined forces inside Le Mans' Garage 56 to build an custom Next-Gen 1000 Horsepower Camaro - can it blow the field away at the 24 Hours race?

 

More Garage 56 Sebring & Daytona Road Course Testing Footage

The SuperSquad
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12,003 views Feb 24, 2023
Video/Picture Credits: - NASCAR - Garage 56 - Scott Heckert - Jordan Taylor - Only Endurance - NASCAR Garage 56 - Hendrick Motorsports - Jethro Bovingdon

 

NASCAR GARAGE 56 Testing at Sebring International Raceway for the 24 Hours of Le Mans

The SuperSquad
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Video/Picture Credits: NASCARG56 - Twitter Lanky Turtle - YouTube Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR NASCAR Garage 56 Goodyear

 

HEADLIGHTS ON A NASCAR CAR - Garage 56 Light Addition Footage & More!

The SuperSquad
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10,922 views Feb 2, 2023
Video/Picture Credits: NASCAR NASCAR on FOX Garage 56 Jenson Button

 

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is 100 years old. The race is always popular but this year there will not be a spare seat in the house as the automotive world celebrates its glittering anniversary.

For this milestone event, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) has the privilege of welcoming one of the biggest superstars in the history of world sport to France. LeBron James, the legendary American basketball player, business innovator and philanthropist will lower the French flag to unleash the 62-strong field.

RELATED: All things Garage 56

Since 1949, the role of race starter has often been given to a personality from the world of politics, sport, film or industry. Previous official starters include Brad Pitt (2016), Rafael Nadal (201, Alain Delon (1996), French president Georges Pompidou (1972) and Steve McQueen (1971).

Pierre Fillon, Automobile Club de l’Ouest president: “I am thrilled to welcome LeBron James to the 24 Hours of Le Mans Centenary and thank him most sincerely for accepting our invitation. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is a world-renowned event that, in the past, has welcomed some great names from various fields. LeBron James is a true sporting legend whose list of achievements and records commands respect and admiration. We are looking forward to introducing him to the unique Le Mans atmosphere and the excitement generated by the Centenary of the world’s greatest endurance race.”

LeBron James: “There’s nothing like seeing and experiencing sports at their highest level. It’s an honor for me to be part of this historic moment in motorsports and help celebrate the Centenary of one of the biggest sporting events in the world. I look forward to kicking off this iconic race and watching its world-class drivers compete on Le Mans’ global stage.”

 

For Garage 56 crew chief Greg Ives, a first Le Mans experience ‘unlike any other’

Chris Graythen Getty ImagesLE MANS, France — With his years of experience as a NASCAR crew chief, Greg Ives is familiar with the routine: Arrive at the track, work diligently to prepare a race car, leave the track, hotel time, repeat.

“I’m not quite the tourist, you know, I’m a worker,” Ives said as the Garage 56 project wrapped up its final test at Sebring International Raceway. He was seven weeks away from his first trip to Le Mans, where the modified Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 will take on the grand 24-hour race that commemorates its 100th year.

RELATED: At-track photos: Le Mans | Race-week schedule

Now that he’s here, that hotel-to-track-and-back routine is still familiar, but with some key differences in his surroundings in France.
Related Story
Jimmie Johnson, Garage 56 make strides with Le Mans test-day debut “Having maybe a bit more team outings where I go and spend a little bit more time with the guys and have dinner and try to enjoy it more so than trying to pressure myself to be better every lap, that’s probably a difference,” Ives said between the two sessions of Sunday’s test day ahead of the June 10-11 endurance classic, adding that his family would be joining him for race week to savor some of the experience. “The spectacle of Le Mans is unlike any other. I feel like if I want to compare it to something, it’d probably be considered the Daytona 500 where you’re here for two weeks, setting up and getting prepped and going through tech. You have all your new clothing and your new branding everywhere. Trailers look good, and you bring some extra here and there. But like I said, all in all, this is going to be a race like no other than I’ve been a part of.”

Ives manned the headset for Sunday’s test, just as he has for the rigorous testing of the Garage 56 car – a NASCAR Next Gen-based racer built to match wits with the sports-car crowd in the Innovative Car classification. Calling those shots over the team communications has been his business in the NASCAR national-series ranks since 2013.

Since then, Ives has collected 10 Cup Series wins and an Xfinity Series championship before coming off the road with his retirement from that full-time role with Hendrick’s No. 48 team at the end of last season. Though he joined VP of Competition Chad Knaus’ group in that transition, the crew chief label still fits with the unique project ahead of the team.

“I’ll tell you that Greg and Chad take a lot of pride in this event, and they’ve taken a lot of pride in this car,” team owner Rick Hendrick said at Sebring in April. “Little innovative things that we’ve done, I mean, some people don’t realize the engineering talent we have in NASCAR, how many engineers we have in our shop that are looking at every aspect of the car to try to make it better.”
Chris Graythen | Getty ImagesThe experience has been a new one for Ives and the rest of the No. 24 team in France, from conducting pre-race inspection in front of a phalanx of fans in a downtown square to the distinctive paddock footprint on a massive pit road that will accommodate the 62-car field. But it’s also been a unique happening for the rest of the European motoring world. Firing the Camaro’s throaty V8 for test runs has attracted a swell of curious onlookers – fans and other team members alike.

Though Ives admitted that being an extra entrant — invited to race but not competing for a win – from another discipline of motorsports has made the Garage 56 car something of an outsider. But Ives said that the team has also made its best effort to be gracious visitors who look the part – on and off the circuit.

“For me, the level of professionalism, the level that Mr. Hendrick expects, the level that Chad wants us to be here in presence is accepted by everybody and they know their role in making sure that when they see us, we have a nice pit area, we’re clean, we’re performing on the race track,” Ives said. “I think that probably was a big thing. An innovation car is probably, I wouldn’t say well-accepted no matter if you’re NASCAR or not, but NASCAR brought a different dynamic and they see us on Sundays and have maybe formed their own opinion between what they watch with F1, Indy and NASCAR.

“But in our environment, we had a given goal of lap time and mile per hour, and you give that to any type of racer here at Hendrick Motorsports and we’re going to try to achieve it — and not only achieve it, but we’re going to try and make sure we win. So there’s no real winning in this, but getting to that 24-hour mark, having pace, having people look down and say, ‘Hey, man, they did a great job.’ And that’s all we can ask for.”

MORE: Timetable, coverage of Garage 56 project

So far in the early stages, the job has gone well. The Garage 56 car outpaced the others in the LMGTE Am class in Sunday’s final three-hour test session, and the accomplished driver roster of veteran aces Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller have excelled – both with an incident-free six hours of track time and by waging their own friendly internal competition in finding speed at Circuit de la Sarthe.

There was some satisfaction to be found in the car’s performance, according to Ives. It also helped put away any fears that the full-bodied stocker would be a slower nuisance amid the lightning-fast Hypercar prototypes.

“You can never question the driver lineup that we have in the car, and I get their concerns, you know. The car is unlike any other,” Ives says. “They feel like it’s big, it’s heavy, may not be able to handle as well, top speed might not be as high. But like I said, the (race organizers) ACO, the FIA, Dallara, all those people are communicating well with each other, gave us the target that we needed to hit. I think they are happy that we are in that sentence, and that the true meaning of why there’s an innovative car in this paddock right now is to do exactly what we’re doing — bring another form of racing, bring in another form of technology to Le Mans, allow people to see it and maybe learn from it.”

 

Jimmie Johnson, Garage 56 make strides with Le Mans test-day debut

By Holly Cain


Chris Graythen Getty ImagesLE MANS, France – Wherever Jimmie Johnson walked trackside at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France on Sunday, fans wandered over for a photograph with the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. Good-luck handshakes, cheers and autograph seekers stopped him in the crowded paddock.

Truth be told, Johnson was equally as enamored with the setting and people, constantly snapping photographs and taking videos of the historic track and scene where he will compete June 10-11 as part of the Garage 56 NASCAR effort in the 100th anniversary of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

RELATED: At-track photos: Le Mans | Race week schedule

The smile on Johnson’s face was genuine and enduring – both as he anticipated his first-ever laps at the 8.467-mile road course on Sunday morning and again after he climbed out of the cockpit of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 after his maiden outing around one of racing’s most renowned circuits.

“The atmosphere is insane,” Johnson said of his first full-day at track. “I was chatting with someone yesterday, a fan, that said Americans have always been loved at Le Mans. He said our reputation is very accommodating, hospitable, very kind to the fans.”

Even 4,000 miles away in Europe, fans certainly know Johnson, who actually won his most recent NASCAR Cup Series race on this day six years ago at Dover – his 83rd victory in a NASCAR career that included an unprecedented five consecutive series championships among his seven titles.
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Jimmie Johnson creates new Le Mans memories, brings NASCAR flavor to parade through town “I signed a 2006 championship hat someone had,” Johnson said. “Even diecast cars, all this different NASCAR stuff.”

In Sunday’s test session, the Garage 56 team drivers combined to turn 58 laps in the Chevrolet, which is being designated for the race’s special one-car “Innovative Car” class – a collaboration of NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, Goodyear and IMSA; the effort led by Johnson’s former crew chief Chad Knaus, now a Hendrick team executive.

MORE: Johnson soaks in Le Mans with in-town parade

Johnson and his championship teammates on the Garage 56 team – former Formula One champion Jenson Button and former Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller are keeping dibs on who is fastest in each session. Button took the honors in the opening session. Rockenfeller was quickest in the afternoon. Four-time IMSA champion Jordan Taylor, who made his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at Portland, Oregon on Saturday, is flying in to serve as the reserve driver.

“I wouldn’t say everything’s going as planned because, you know always when you plan, there’s things that have some hiccups here or there,” said Greg Ives, the Garage 56 crew chief, who also formerly served in that role for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series.

“Today is relatively going well and we had some pace in the car. The drivers are relatively happy and it seems like the balance of the car is very similar to how we ended at most of these tracks. So we were able to mimic, not only the simulation but get the lap time kind of where we thought we should be and could be in top speed and all that stuff.

“So, we’ve still got some lap time to go,” Ives continued during a break between Sunday’s two sessions. “But you know, right now it’s the first three hours of Le Mans and we just got off the track that had semis and cars and bicycles on it, so I feel like we’re in a decent spot. Trying to get as many laps for the drivers as they can to make sure they’re comfortable and work through the bugs of the car.”

Ives said the team had not settled on a driver order just yet. In Sunday’s practices, it was Rockenfeller then Johnson and then Button. He said the team planned to run double stints for most of the race, after single stints early on to get every driver some track time.

MORE: Garage 56 timeline, coverage

The Hypercar Class No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari posted the top overall speed on Sunday. There is a day off from track activity on Monday, when Johnson will travel with his teammate Button to Paris. The team – primarily made up of Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team members – will participate in the pit stop competition on Tuesday. Formal practice and qualifying for the race begins on Wednesday.

“I think first of all it was so nice to finally be on track in Le Mans in this car after all the work we did,” Rockenfeller said after Sunday’s final session. “The whole team can be proud of today. I know it’s only a test day but I’m happy we were driving without any problems. We were fast and that’s where we want to be. The car looks amazing on track and sounds great.

“We were just doing our work, learning the track, track evolution and making the car faster, trying stuff out. It’s still a long week ahead of us, but I think today we just take that and make the right conclusions. I feel pretty happy with everything.”

A sellout crowd of more than 300,000 spectators is expected for the weekend’s “Centenary” race weekend. The famous grandstands and grounds surrounding the massive road course in central France were packed with people even for Sunday’s unofficial test sessions.

“It was really good for a lot of reasons,” Johnson said of his first day on track. “One, just my desire to come and compete here and be in the event. That reality hit me and then after a few laps I realized the pace the car had as well, all the hard work everyone at Hendrick has put into this showed up.

“We feel good about the speed. The concerns were that we’d be really fast on the straights and slow on the high-speed turns and relative to the GT cars we’re much closer in the high-speed turns than we ever thought and actually a little slow on the long straights. But we can optimize that. It’s just gone so well on so many levels.”

“Granted there’s still 18 hours of practice and a race and so much can go wrong. But for day one, it’s just gotten off to a great start.”