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Johnson, Rockenfeller, and Button to drive NASCAR Garage 56 entry at Le Mans

Hendrick Motorsports
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emailBy Richard S. James | January 28, 2023 12:36 PM ET

An eclectic all-star mix of drivers will pilot the joint Rick Hendrick/Chevrolet Garage 56 Project at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Seven-time NASCAR champion and IndyCar driver Jimmie Johnson, 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, and sports car ace and 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Mike “Rocky” Rockenfeller will drive the Next Gen Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 at the centenary event this June.led by legendary crew chief Chad Knaus, the Garage 56 project is a partnership between NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, and Goodyear.

“Since the beginning of the Garage 56 project, it has been our goal to partner with the top racers in the world to represent us in Le Mans,” said Jim France, NASCAR chairman and CEO who was honored with the Spirit of Le Mans award last year. “The lineup of Jimmie, ‘Rocky ’and Jenson is everything we could have dreamed of – three elite drivers who have won at the highest levels of motorsports worldwide.

“As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of NASCAR, we are honored to have these world-class champions help bring the sights and sounds of a NASCAR racecar to fans in Le Mans, and across the world.”

After making his name in NASCAR driving for Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports, Johnson started a second career in sports cars and the NTT IndyCar Series. A regular in the 24 Hours of Daytona and other endurance races in recent years, Johnson is eagerly anticipating driving at Circuit de la Sarthe.

“I’m super thrilled – it’s been at the top of my bucket list to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans someday,” Johnson said. “To have this opportunity come – and to partner with everybody and this driver lineup – is truly an incredible opportunity and one that I am thankful to be a part of.”

Related

Button targeting Le Mans return

Button, whose history in F1 includes 15 wins and 50 podiums, has been making his mark as an announcer for the sport in recent years. He’s no stranger to Le Mans, having competed in the race in 2018.

“This is a total surprise. I was on the way to Disneyland and took the wrong road,” joked Button before getting more serious. “It’s really, really special to be here. I’ve always thought of myself as a racing driver, and I finished my F1 career and I looked for new challenges. And this is definitely an exciting challenge to work alongside these two.

“As you can see already, there’s some good banter here. I think it just shows that teamwork that we all need to go to Le Mans and to perform as we would like. So I’m very excited to work with this all-star team, and I think we can achieve something very special.”
Johnson and Rockenfeller have already worked together in IMSA. Gavin Baker/Motorsport Images

Rockenfeller has been driving alongside Johnson in the No. 48 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi in recent years, and won the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, plus a 2005 GT win, victory in the 2010 Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 2013 German DTM championship. Rockenfeller has served as the lead test driver for the Garage 56 project driving the car at every on-track test and spending countless hours behind the wheel in the simulator.

“It has been a great journey so far with the whole team and project,” Rockenfeller said. “To be involved as a driver from day one until now was already a great honor, and to now have Jimmie and Jenson alongside me as teammates in Le Mans is unbelievable.”

Corvette Racing driver, four-time IMSA champion and 2015 Le Mans winner in GTE Jordan Taylor will be offering assistance to Button, and the others, as well as serving as reserve driver.

All three drivers will participate in next week’s two-day test at Daytona International Speedway, the first time the car will run in the darkness with lights. While Johnson and Rockenfeller have had time in the car, Button will be getting his first laps in it during the test. Details about the car and what’s gone into it to make it suitable for Le Mans will be forthcoming.

 

One year countdown to Camaro Cup Garage 56 begins

Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | June 7, 2022 6:05 PM ET

The one-year countdown clock has started on the collaboration between NASCAR, IMSA, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans to field a modified Camaro ZL1 Cup car as 2023’s Garage 56 entry.

Days away from the 99th year of the world’s greatest endurance race, it’s the retro-inspired return of NASCAR in an official capacity at Circuit de la Sarthe for the centennial running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans that has the Daytona Beach-based organization and its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship arm working at a feverish pace.

Following the project’s announcement in March, Hendrick Motorsports, Action Express Racing, Chevy Racing, Goodyear, Dallara, and more key partners have mashed the throttle on developing the V8-powered Next Gen Cup car into something that can capably and reliably run among the GT cars and purebred prototypes next June.

“In motorsports we know one thing is for certain: The green flag will drop at an exact time and we have to be ready,” IMSA president and project leader John Doonan told RACER. “For all of us working on the ‘NASCAR to Le Mans’ Garage 56 project, this fact has finally hit home as the 365-day countdown clock has officially been turned on at the Hendrick Motorsports headquarters.”

Fueled by the blue-collar approach taken back in 1976 when NASCAR founder Bill France Sr and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest formed a special ‘Grand International’ category to host two Cup entries, France’s sports car-loving son Jim has brought the French and American sanctioning bodies together again for a return visit that will add some impressive layers of polish to the adventure.
Herschel McGriff and his son Doug brought this Dodge Charger to Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1976. A broken piston put him out after just two laps. ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images

More than 40 years ago, the trip spearheaded by France Sr was done to celebrate America’s bicentennial, but with a conflicting NASCAR race on the same weekend as Le Mans, all of the Cup major teams passed on the invitation to represent the U.S.A. in favor of competing on the Californian road course at Riverside. The NASCAR-to-Le Mans mission was then left to a pair of small teams, with Hershel and Doug McGriff representing the stock car organization in a 5.5-liter V8-powered Dodge Charger and a 7.0-liter Ford Torino prepared for Richard Brooks, Dick Hutcherson and Marcel Mignon by Junie Donlavey.

Together, the ‘two monsters’ were everything you’d expect — missiles in a straight line – and not a whole lot more on their debut. The Dodge lasted all of two laps before its engine broke and the Ford did make it into the morning hours of Sunday but ground to a halt when the transmission surrendered.

Pivoting from the modest resources applied for the bicentennial, the new program being overseen in the shop and eventually at the track by seven-time championship-winning Cup crew chief Chad Knaus is a different beast. The full might of General Motors and all of the aforementioned partners are being applied to the Camaro ZL1 that will make use of IMSA’s new-for-2023 spec energy recovery system.

It’s here where a standard Chevrolet Cup car, being transformed into a hybrid, with all of the necessary endurance racing accoutrements, has the ACO ready to accept the vehicle as its Garage 56 entry for innovative or unique projects.

Fans of the 24 Hours of Le Mans often cite the original Garage 56 entry in 2012 with Highcroft Racing’s Nissan-powered DeltaWing as the prototypical model for the class where a single car is nominated to run as an unclassified participant in the two-day race. But like the Camaro ZL1, there have been other wrinkles to the class that speak to an open philosophy on the ACO’s selections which don’t always fall into a requirement for cutting-edge sports car designs or new automotive technologies.
Junie Donleavy’s NASCAR-style Ford Torino lasted a little longer than the Charger at Le Mans in 1976, but still failed to make it to the finish. ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images

France’s Frederic Sausset exemplified a different approach to Garage 56 in 2016 when the quadruple amputee and his SRT41 By Oak Racing entry was chosen; with special controls fitted to his LMP2 prototype, a small crane system was designed to lift Sausset in and out of the car during pit stops, and when his fully-able teammates drove, familiar ingress and egress methods and standard vehicle controls were used. In the same vein, all of the technology contained within the Camaro ZL1 won’t be new to Le Mans, but as a package, the car and team will be something the event and its hundreds of thousands of fans have never seen before.

“While this is a very daunting task and you’d always love more time to prepare everything, there is an incredibly talented and dedicated group of partners who are hunkered down, pulling all the pieces together,” Doonan said.

“From the winningest team in NASCAR history with Rick Hendrick to the winningest manufacturer in NASCAR history with Chevrolet, from NASCAR’s tire partner since 1954 with Goodyear to one of NASCAR’s engineering partners on the Next Gen chassis with Dallara, everyone has been hard at work preparing for our first opportunity for on-track testing. We’ve already started Driver-In-The-Loop simulator testing, and everyone is most excited to fire-up the car and get on track. It is simply a group of motorsports all-stars making all of this happen.”

RACER will chronicle all that’s coming in the next year for the project as it moves from virtual testing to real-world running at various road courses and then onto its debut at Le Mans. France, Doonan, and Knaus will be on a reconnaissance run at the event this week as they prepare for the program to intensify over the next 52 weeks.

“We have also been meeting regularly with the ACO and FIA leadership and technical staffs as we seek our official invitation for 2023,” Doonan said. “Everyone has been very helpful and supportive in the early stages of this challenge and we cannot wait to represent NASCAR on this global stage as Le Mans celebrates its centennial year.”

 

Who are the main cogs in the Garage 56 Next Gen Camaro machine?

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | June 10, 2022 1:34 PM ET

Who are the main players behind the 2023 Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Cup-based Garage 56 entry for the 24 Hours of Le Mans? It’s an assembly of surprisingly disparate groups with vast experience that overlap in some areas and diverge in others.

Atop the list is NASCAR CEO Jim France, whose idea to make a return trip to Circuit de la Sarthe – 47 years after the stock car organization participated with two Cup cars in 1976 – set the project in motion. France tapped IMSA Weather SportsCar Championship president John Doonan, who came to IMSA after leading Mazda’s motor racing department for many years, to make use of his big project skills and lead the entire effort.

Immense knowledge of the Next Gen Cup car has been secured with John Probst, NASCAR’s VP of innovation and racing development, and Brandon Thomas, NASCAR’s managing director of vehicle systems, being attached to the Garage 56 project.

A lot of what I’m doing is leading the collaboration between the NASCAR Technical Center and IMSA and our relationship with [Le Mans organizers] the ACO,” Doonan told RACER. “The technical center side has proven to be not only solid, but growing, such that we have that facility up in Concord, North Carolina, and it’s really impressive to see the team there and all the resources they utilize. So when Garage 56 came about, it was a natural extension of being able to work much closer with John and Brandon, the guys that really lead the development of the Next Gen Cup car.

“Brandon, on a day to day basis, has essentially been the product manager with the new Cup cars, working with all the different suppliers, and John is the head of all things technical at NASCAR. He has been involved from the first discussions about this Garage 56 project, and Brandon’s leading in terms of the relationship that they developed with Dallara on the Next Gen car and all the single-source suppliers that they have that are part of the Next Gen package.”

On the ground at Hendrick Motorsports, which will run the car in testing and at Le Mans, legendary Cup crew chief Chad Knaus has been installed to manage all aspects of developing the Camaro ZL1 for endurance racing and leading the team in competition.

Chevrolet is centrally involved with not only the Camaro ZL1, but also the development of the 5.8-liter V8 powerplant that will need to last at least 24 hours at Le Mans and learn to work with a 40hp electronic motor that will harvests energy under braking and add its electric horsepower in strategic areas of the 8.5-mile circuit.

Together, Mark Stielow, GM’s director of motorsport competition engineering, Jim Danahy, GM’s VP of global hardware components and subsystems, and Russ O’Blenes, GM’s performance and racing propulsion team director, represent the best the Bowtie has to offer.

“The whole engine program is led by Chevrolet,” Doonan said. “That is absolutely locked and loaded. Russ runs the engine program at Team Chevy. Mark is the lead on racing projects for GM, so he’s already heavily involved with NASCAR and IMSA, and Jim is a great fit on their side with the development of the car and the integration of their Le Mans powerplant into the Camaro.”

With the need to develop rubber that will survive the rigors of endurance racing with a Cup car, Stu Grant, Goodyear’s GM of global race tires and Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, are working with the team to create road racing and rain tires specifically for the ZL1 at Le Mans.

“The objective of the Garage 56 project is to demonstrate the hybrid Camaro Cup car’s potential, finish the race, and operate at a solid performance window among the GT cars, and in order to do that, thanks to their five-plus decades of tire development on the NASCAR side, and their tire development and participation at Le Mans, Goodyear are developing a bespoke tire for this car,” Doonan said.

“So they’ve been looking at tire dimensions, tire compounds, tire construction, and how we can maybe go a little bit wider, go with a compound that would be different from what would be used in NASCAR competition. So that’s what Stu and Greg have been working on, delivering on the simulation data, such that we can knock off as much lap time as possible. We’re going there to finish, but also have a respectable lap time.”

On the chassis side, Dallara’s chief designer Luca Pignacca and Alex Timmermans, a multi-faceted chassis and design talent whose skills are found in IndyCar and NASCAR on the constructor’s behalf, round out the major group of Camaro ZL1 Garage 56 support staff.

“Dallara played such a key role in the engineering of the Next Gen Cup car, so having them included to help develop this car into an endurance racing package was a must,” Doonan said. “So between Luca and Alex, they’ve been working with us on finding ways to bring endurance DNA to the car in the ways of driver comfort, packaging, and even assisting with the integration of the hybrid system.

“They also have played a critical role in my discussions with the ACO and the FIA, relative to the safety of the car and how it relates to the FIA and ACO requirements. It’s a big team of companies and organizations involved with this project and we couldn’t do it without each one of our partners.”

 

VIDEO: Garage 56 update with IMSA President John Doonan

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | August 5, 2022 7:06 PM ET


IMSA president John Doonan speaks with RACER’s Marshall Pruett and provides updates on the Camaro ZL1 Cup car project that’s headed to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023 with the Garage 56 program.

 

Garage 56 testing kicks into gear at Daytona

James Gilbert/Getty Images via NASCAR
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emailBy J.J. O'Malley | February 1, 2023 2:50 PM ET

Mike Rockenfeller, Jenson Button and Jimmie Johnson put a new Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 through its paces for the first time at Daytona International Speedway on Tuesday, kicking off its preparation for the 100th anniversary 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

Rockenfeller and Johnson have already logged more than 2,000 miles of testing with a test mule, which was on public display at last weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. Meanwhile, Hendrick Motorsports was finishing up its test car, which is being run Tuesday and Wednesday at Daytona and later at Sebring International Raceway as the joint partnership among Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR, Chevrolet and Goodyear kicks into high gear.

“This test mainly is about getting miles, getting the group together for the first time,” said Rockenfeller, an overall winner of both the Daytona and Le Mans endurance classics. “It’s cool to be in a NASCAR [stock car] for the first time in Daytona – where it really belongs. It was nice to do the first laps. It’s very different from any other track, with the combination of the banking and the infield. We are still trying to work on the setup a little bit; work on driver changes; also, tire testing takes up a big portion as well.”

The plan was to run Rockenfeller, Button, Johnson and driver coach Jordan Taylor in the car into the evening on Tuesday ahead of a planned 12-hour test on Wednesday in preparation for Sebring, where the current aim is for back-to-back 12-hour sessions with a short interval in between.

“There’s a lot of come in this test, and it’s another milestone in a way,” Rockenfeller said. “But we’ll definitely still need a bit of testing after this.”

The unique project is part of Le Mans’ Garage 56 to spotlight unique cars or technology. In this case, it’s taking NASCAR racing to a world-wide audience.
Image by James Gilbert/Getty Images via NASCAR

Even though they’re not competing for a trophy – or even a Rolex watch – pride is still on the line.

“We’re all racers, and we’re looking at all of these test sessions to make the car as strong and competitive as it can be,” said Johnson, a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. “Even though we won’t have any other cars that we will be racing, we all know the pace this car can run, and we want to help it get there. It’s neat to see the professionalism and work ethic that everyone is bringing to the table. All the things that you do normally to win a race, we’re doing with the Garage 56 program.”

Johnson said that the car’s first three tests have been plagued by rainy weather, which has hindered the tire development. At Daytona, with clear skies and temperature in the 80s in the forecast, that shouldn’t be a problem.

“We have certain goals,” Rockenfeller said. “We clearly want to finish, and we don’t want to be last. We’ve got a good group of drivers, so there’s always fun in between as we try to push each other. Hopefully, we can fight some cars on track. But at the end, it’s to showcase the car to the fans, to Europe, at the biggest endurance race in the world.”

After Button turned his first laps at Daytona, Johnson was the first person to lean into the car to get a few words with the 2009 Formula 1 world champion.
Image by James Gilbert/Getty Images via NASCAR

“I obviously went the other direction the last two years to driving formula cars, and I’ve been waiting for that confirmation on how different the two worlds are,” Johnson said. “I got it today.”

Johnson returns from his detour into IndyCar to run a limited NASCAR Cup Series schedule this year, but in June, he gets to check off one of the remaining items on his bucket list.

“This is really the last one standing, and it’s really been at the top of my list for decades,” Johnson admitted. “I’m super-thrilled to do it, and super-thrilled to do it with this team, with the partners involved, and a great group of drivers. Not only are we going to win our category, we hope to win the fun and the parties in France as well!”

 

Inside NASCAR's 1000HP Le Mans Camaro!

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120 subscribers19,051 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?

 

NASCAR Le Mans Garage 56 entry revealed

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | February 17, 2023 1:22 PM ET

NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear took another step toward the 24 Hours of Le Mans by unveiling their official Garage 56 entry Friday at Daytona International Speedway.

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 largely resembles its NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen counterpart with a composite symmetric body. The main difference is the specs that make Garage 56 fit to compete in France, such as headlights, taillights and a larger fuel cell. The Garage 56 car is also lighter than the Next Gen car, weighing in at 2,960 lbs (1,342 kg) compared to the heavy stock car at 3,485 lbs.

The Garage 56 car is the same height (50.4 inches) and width (78.6 in.) as the Next Gen car, although it is slightly larger. Next Gen has a length of 193.4 in., and Garage 56 is 195.4 in. And both vehicles will run the same engine –the Chevrolet R07 cast iron small block V8.

“From the beginning of this project, it was important to us that the car we bring to Le Mans is a true NASCAR stock car,” said NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France. “While there have been some adjustments to allow the car to compete in a 24-hour endurance race, fans in Le Mans will be treated to the full NASCAR experience.”
About to pull up to Le Mans in style. pic.twitter.com/95a0KfhYno

— Hendrick Motorsports (@TeamHendrick)

The entry still has not received official approval by the I’Automobile Club de l’Ouest but the parties involved anticipate that happening in the near future.

Mike Rockenfeller, Jimmie Johnson, and Jenson Button will drive the Garage 56 car in the the 100th 24 Hours of Le Mans, set to be held June 10-11.

The Garage 56 car will be back on track Monday and Tuesday for a 24-hour test at Sebring International Raceway.

Click here to view a graphic providing a detailed comparison of the Cup Series and Garage 56 Camaros.

 

Cadillac, Porsche, and Glickenhaus boost top class for centenary Le Mans 24 Hours

Richard Dole/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Graham Goodwin | February 27, 2023 12:29 PM ET

The 62 car entry list for the centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans in June features a 16 car entry in the top ‘Hypercar’ class, the best top-class total for the race since 2011.

The Hypercar entry has factory efforts from Porsche, Peugeot, Cadillac, and Glickenhaus, and the Le Mans top class return for the first time in half a century from Ferrari with two new 499 P prototypes – plus a privately entered Porsche 963 from Hertz-sponsored team Jota and the Vanwall from ByKolles Racing, all aiming to break the winning streak of Toyota Gazoo Racing.

More Le Mans/WEC!

Toyota reveals 2023 version of GR010 HYBRID Hypercar

NASCAR Le Mans Garage 56 entry revealed

Garage 56 testing kicks into gear at Daytona

The total includes no fewer than five US-flagged entries including three Cadillacs and a pair of Glickenhaus SCG 007s

Cadillac, which has confirmed that its car is now named the Cadillac V-Series.R, will field both of their full season cars from the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship alongside the full season WEC car that contested the 2023 Rolex 24 Hours.

Cadillac Racing, run in conjunction with Chip Ganassi Racing has two cars on the entry with Action Express racing also listed for the team’s first ever appearance at the french classic.

Six-time IndyCar Champion Scott Dixon is set to make his Le Mans top-class debut as part of the effort. He previously featured in the Ford GT programme at each of their Le Mans attempts in the now discontinued GTE Pro class scoring a class podium one his debut.

Glickenhaus Racing meanwhile has also been successful in adding a second entry for Le Mans to its full season WEC entry and will be hoping to at least repeat its podium-finishing performance last year.

Porsche too has added an additional car with one of the pair of IMSA GTP-entered Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963s also making the trip for a total of three factory cars from the German marque.

Elsewhere on the entry though there have been slim pickings for North American teams.

Whilst John Farano’s Canadian Tower Motorsports LMP2 team takes up its automatic invitation in a 24 car class entry after IMSA success in 2022, the Dragonspeed USA LMP2 effort is only second reserve despite an eye-catching driver line-yup that includes father and son Juan Pablo and Sebastien Montoya.

In GTE Am, the WEC full season Corvette Racing C8.R and Canadian-flagged Northwest AMR Aston Martin efforts are listed as part of a 21 car line-up, as is IMSA trophy winner Ryan Hardwick in a Proton Competition-run Porsche, this the final Le Mans for GTE-specification cars.

However both Risi Competizione and Heart of Racing are reserve listed in their Ferrari and Aston Martin efforts.

Hendrick Motorsports is confirmed with the NASCAR Garage 56 effort, confirmed with the number 24 for the race with Jimmie Johnson joined by 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button and 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Mike Rockenfeller in the otherwise all-American Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Next Gen NASCAR car.

 

Garage 56 ‘coach’ role more about give and take for Jordan Taylor

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emailBy John Oreovicz, IMSA Wire Service | March 1, 2023 3:52 PM ET

What can a racing driver teach other racing drivers – especially when the students are a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, a Formula 1 world champion and a versatile sports car ace?

With Jordan Taylor’s skill set, turns out it’s quite a lot.

Taylor, driver of the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, has been named backup driver for the Garage 56 partnership between NASCAR, IMSA, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear that will field a NASCAR Cup Series-based Chevrolet Camaro as an entry in the “Innovative Car” class for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. He’s also serving as a coach and mentor for the car’s all-star driver lineup of Jimmie Johnson (the NASCAR legend), Jenson Button (the F1 champ) and Mike Rockenfeller — winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and multiple sports car championships around the world.

Not that Taylor thinks they need his help.

“My title is ‘driver coach,’ but I think that’s more of a joke than anything with the level of drivers that we have,” Taylor said, chuckling. “I think a more accurate title would just be a consultant, with a lot of experience on the sports car side — the Le Mans side, specifically, having raced there so many years.

“The Hendrick guys obviously have no experience there, so I can give them some feedback and things to look out for, whether it’s about rules or protocols of a secondary nature that are very easy to overlook when you’re not expecting them. It’s exciting being involved with a team like Hendrick and continuing my association with GM and Chevrolet.”

Indeed, Taylor would be a natural for the role just given his history with Corvette Racing. The younger son of sports car racing stalwart Wayne Taylor has tallied eight starts at Circuit de la Sarthe in Corvettes, claiming a class win in 2015 and three other podium finishes. Jordan and Antonio Garcia also earned class championships for Corvette in the WeatherTech Championship in 2020 and ’21 to go along with titles that Taylor earned in prototype competition in 2013 and ’17, both also with General Motors affiliation.

But Taylor also brings a truckload of intangibles to the effort — like an inquisitive technical mind and steely resolve that is sometimes masked by a happy-go-lucky personality that lights up any room.

As soon as he heard rumors about Garage 56, Taylor reached out to Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Competition Chad Knaus, offering to help in any way. Knaus kept Taylor in the loop from the start, vowing to somehow get him on board.

“It’s just a cool project to be involved with,” Taylor said. “These days, most of our racecars are homologated to the dot, and this is a program that’s a little bit more old school where the driver gets out and says, ‘This could be better’ or, ‘This could be improved,’ and the team can go back to the shop and develop new parts or new pieces by the time you return for your next test. That’s how you develop a race car.

“It’s been cool to give feedback, and it’s always kind of rewarding when you see some of your feedback going into work and production,” he added. “At Daytona, I gave some feedback on the dash and the layout of the steering wheel, and then at the next Sebring test, it was all there on the car. It’s nice to see that progress happening so fast.”

Taylor believes the Garage 56 Camaro will impress international spectators with its performance in addition to the roar from its NASCAR-derived V8 engine. “I think it’s going to open a lot of people’s eyes at Le Mans and around the world when they see this car in person,” he said.

He’s also looking forward to seeing how the Garage 56 crew — many of whom are veterans of Hendrick Motorsports’ record-smashing NASCAR program — react to the atmosphere and pageantry of Le Mans, the granddaddy of 24-hour sports car endurance races celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first race in June.

“When I went there the first time, it was eye-opening and hard to take everything in, whether it’s scrutineering or the drivers’ parade or all the national anthems going on,” Taylor related. “I think it’s going to be super memorable for a lot of them.

“But this is a project they were all excited about,” he noted. “They’re coming back to competition in such a cool way, and I know they are all looking forward to it. It’s going to be everyone’s first 24-hour race, so I think it’s going to be an amazing experience for everybody.”
“Coach” Taylor checks in with Garage 56 racers Johns (left) and Button.

While Taylor admits he’d love to be competing at Le Mans for the ninth time as a driver, he’s still honored and excited to be a key member of the Garage 56 team.

“It’s a bunch of amazing people, and to kind of see how Hendrick works has been impressive and I’ve learned a lot,” he said. “Working with Chad and Jimmie, seeing their relationship, and (crew chief) Greg Ives had a lot of success in NASCAR. Seeing how the team operates — how they run through a test, how they do pre- and post-event briefings — there are so many little things I can take away and take back to my regular side of racing.

“Learning a different driving style suited toward a Cup car has been fun,” he added. “Learning from the different drivers — how they give feedback, what they focus on with their feedback, different driving style traits that each guy can bring from their different walks of life. It’s been a super interesting process so far. I’m really happy and excited to have been part of it, and looking forward to seeing how it progresses through June.”

 

VIDEO: Garage 56 update with John Doonan

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emailBy Marshall Pruett | March 17, 2023 6:08 PM ET
Presented by: Piloti RACER’s Marshall Pruett and IMSA President John Doonan catch up on the latest developments with the Chevrolet ZL1 NASCAR Cup car that’s been developed to race under the Garage 56 entry in June at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Is the head of IMSA saying that he favors this team?