Jordan Taylor's Cup cameo "was pretty much just survival".

“It’s brutal,” he said. “Guys fight for every inch, every position, and even if you’re a second faster than someone, they’re going to push you off just to go for a top 30 finish.

So, it’s just a different style of racing. Something to learn and something to know if I ever come back.”

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 27, 2023 7:54 AM ET

Although he ran all the laps in his NASCAR Cup Series debut, Jordan Taylor was looking for something more from Circuit of the Americas.

“It was definitely wild,” Taylor said after finishing 24th. “I wouldn’t say I survived, I feel like I’m beat up pretty much. Every restart, you just get smashed front, rear, side, so it was pretty much just survival. I felt like guys knew that I would probably be a bit hesitant, so they would take advantage of us.

“Near the end, I got more aggressive. We made our way almost all the way back to the top 10, and then the last restart, I don’t know who went down the inside, but they were never going to make the corner and kind of used us to stop. I’d say disappointing day.

“I made a couple of big mistakes early on that probably put us back there, but the car was fast. I’ve got to thank all the UniFirst people and Hendrick Motorsports for giving me the opportunity. We had good pace; it was just we got shuffled back every restart. Tough day.”

Taylor experienced everything a Cup Series race can throw at a driver. The sports car ace, called upon to replace the injured Chase Elliott, qualified fourth in the No. 9 Chevrolet and showed competitive pace.

But it didn’t take long for Taylor to know he was thrown into the deep end. First, there were the radio issues the team battled from a race course 3.41 miles long, which started before the green flag flew.

“I couldn’t hear the pit box, so I think everything was relayed through the spotters,” Taylor said. “It was probably better to have less communication with too many people, so the spotters were amazing today. They kept me out of enough trouble as they could. I think it was pretty much impossible to keep me out of trouble, but they were amazing. They definitely helped me survive the day.”

Good track position gave Taylor the experience of running near the top of the leaderboard. The rest of the day was filled with other eventful incidents like how easy it is to lock up the tires, being pushed around, green flag pit stops, and multiple restarts,

“Just the level of aggression and respect on track,” said Taylor of what stood out. “Guys see openings, and they probably know they’re not going to make it on their own, and they use you. It’s just a different form of racing from what I’m used to.

“On the sports car side, you’ve got to be a little more gentle, and these cars are definitely robust, and they’ll use you up. Just an experience thing that I definitely wasn’t ready for, but it’s good to get it in my back pocket.”

Taylor went into the last overtime attempt lined up 13th but didn’t make it back around without again encountering an issue perhaps not of his own doing. With a long uphill front straightway, Turn 1 at Circuit of the Americas lends itself to trouble as drivers can fan out three and four wide as they push the issue going into a tight left-hander.

But having gone through so much in the course of 75 laps, Taylor learned a lot. And was struck by the type of competition NASCAR Cup Series racing provides.

“It’s brutal,” he said. “Guys fight for every inch, every position, and even if you’re a second faster than someone, they’re going to push you off just to go for a top 30 finish. So, it’s just a different style of racing. Something to learn and something to know if I ever come back.”

 

Jordan Taylor looks ahead to NASCAR road course ringer role

Photo courtesy of Hendrick Motorsports
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emailBy John Oreovicz, IMSA Wire Service | March 23, 2023 11:39 AM ET

It’s no secret that IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship star Jordan Taylor is a NASCAR enthusiast who has long dreamed of driving in a Cup Series race.

For most drivers, if that opportunity ever arrives, it’s usually with a smaller team, perhaps even a part-time effort. But when Taylor recently got “The Call,” it came from Hendrick Motorsports, the most successful organization in NASCAR history.

With 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott sidelined several weeks by a broken leg sustained in a snowboarding incident, Hendrick needed to temporarily fill the seat of its No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Short-track ace Josh Berry was retained to contest the oval races that Elliott will miss, while Taylor was tabbed to race this weekend at the Circuit of The Americas road course.

While the circumstances are not ideal, competing in the Cup Series car at COTA is still an amazing opportunity for Taylor and gives him the chance to expand his relationship with Hendrick, which is fielding the Garage 56 collaborative entry between NASCAR, IMSA and Chevrolet at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. Taylor is part of that effort, serving as coach, mentor and potential relief driver for the nominated lineup of Jimmie Johnson, Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller.

It was the Garage 56 connection that convinced Chad Knaus, Hendrick’s vice president of competition, that Taylor was the best choice as the road course substitute for Elliott, who has quicky emerged as one of NASCAR’s top road racers.

“Super exciting, obviously, and very unexpected,” Taylor said of the NASCAR opportunity. “Obviously being involved with the Garage 56 thing, I’ve been working with the Hendrick guys for a few months. When I signed up with them, Chad said, ‘I know this (relief driver role) isn’t what you wanted, but just being involved, you never know what it may lead to.’

“I’m super thankful for the opportunity,” he added. “It’s definitely intimidating to go into the race weekend in one of the best cars, but at the same time, not that many guys get that chance to be in such a good car.”


Because the Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro is heavily derived from NASCAR’s Next Gen Cup car, Taylor has some idea of what to expect when he slides behind the wheel this weekend. He’s also watched hours of in-car video footage and logged as much time as possible in the driver-in-the-loop simulator at General Motors’ Charlotte Technical Center in North Carolina.

Still, when he steps into the No. 9 on Friday afternoon, it will be a step into the unknown.

“If the race was in three weeks, I would have moved to Charlotte for three weeks and spent as much time with the team as possible to get as much of an understanding as I can and get ingrained with Hendrick,” Taylor said. “(Crew chief) Alan Gustafson and Chase are texting me, and they’re the guys I can bounce questions off to try and get an idea how close the simulator can be to real life and understand what the differences will be.

“I’m doing a ton of homework and preparation so when I get to the track, it’s just understanding how to drive the car,” he added. “The car couldn’t be any more different than the Corvette we drive, and even the Garage 56 car. I know a lot of people think it’s going to be close to that, but it’s seven or eight seconds in lap time difference around COTA. So, it’s a different animal.”

One advantage for Taylor is his familiarity with Circuit of The Americas. He raced IMSA prototypes four times at COTA, winning twice, and more recently participated in Garage 56 testing. He is also fortunate that because COTA is the first road course on the 2023 Cup Series schedule, NASCAR is allowing 50 minutes of free practice. At many tracks in the post-COVID era, Cup Series competitors often go straight into qualifying without any practice whatsoever.

“When I signed up for it, there was only going to be 20 minutes (practice time), and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be insane!’” Taylor said. “Hopefully, they’ll give us a couple sets of tires, because it will be good to get a run, do a couple setup changes and get another set of tires to kind of understand how to use the new tire for qualifying, how the tires drop off and how to maybe manage them. That’s just another massive thing we’ve never experienced coming into the Cup Series.

“And honestly, the biggest part is understanding the pit stop procedure. I’m used to a pit speed limiter button; they’ve got to watch the dash. We tried that one time in the simulator, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done!”

From Dan Gurney to Boris Said, NASCAR features a lengthy history of “Road course ringers” brought in for those rare occasions when stock cars turn both left and right. At COTA, Taylor won’t be the only road racing specialist in the field; Button and Kimi Raikkonen, both Formula 1 champions, are entered. So is seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Johnson, fresh off his recent IndyCar experiment and newly minted as a co-owner of the Legacy Motor Club Cup team.

Despite the combined pedigree of Johnson, Button and Raikkonen, expectations at COTA are somehow higher for Taylor. That’s what happens when you step into the championship-winning car normally occupied by NASCAR’s perennial Most Popular Driver.

“I know there’s a lot of hype about Raikkonen, Jenson, Jimmie and myself coming,” Taylor acknowledged. “I don’t even want to throw my hat in the same ring with those guys. I would be super excited to watch this race just to see how those guys would do against all the Cup guys.

“I know it’s a unique situation that I’m jumping in one of the best cars. If anybody has a shot of jumping in and figuring it out, hopefully it’s going to be in a Hendrick car. The only excuses are going to be the driver not figuring it out. That’s why I’m taking it so seriously and preparing as much as I can to hit the ground running.”

 

A restless spirit is paying dividends for Jordan Taylor

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emailBy Richard S. James | March 30, 2023 1:06 PM ET

Jordan Taylor can’t sit still. Well, he might have the ability, but he doesn’t have the will.

He could easily enjoy life as a championship-winning driver in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship — first partnering with brother Ricky in their father Wayne’s team to take the first championship for Cadillac in the Daytona Prototype international era in 2017 before following it up in 2020-21 with the final GTLM titles for Corvette Racing. But he’s also discovered a love of triathlon; he’s serving as “coach” and reserve driver for the NASCAR Garage 56 Project for the 24 Hours of Le Mans; recently competed in his first NASCAR race subbing for Chase Elliott at COTA; and expanding his social media enterprises.

“Race car drivers, we have a pretty easy life. We have a lot of free time,” he explains of his extracurricular activities, and triathlon in particular. “So we have a lot of time to train. You can train as much as you want to drive the race car but you only need to be so fit to drive the race car. So for me, doing the triathlons, having competitions … it’s another outlet to compete and compare yourself to others. And I would get very bored if I was training just to drive race cars, so I’m also now training to compete in triathlons as a hobby, for fun. It’s fun to schedule events throughout the year and see my progress — if I’m getting faster on the bike, faster on the run and fine-tuning those things.”


Jordan admits he’s always hated running, so running a marathon after swimming 2.4 miles and biking for 112 miles — the total distance of an Ironman triathlon is more than he’ll likely drive the No. 3 GTD PRO Corvette at the upcoming Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach — seems absurd. But he’s found the training process very interesting, especially tracking his progress.

It’s not an altogether different idea than developing a race car, something he’s been doing both with the new Corvette Z06 GT3.R that will make its competition debut next year and NASCAR’s Garage 56 project that will compete at the centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. Jimmie Johnson, Mike Rockenfeller and Jenson Button will drive the car, with Jordan serving as the reserve driver. The Garage 56 entry for Le Mans is reserved for an “experimental” car that is not competing in one of the regular classes. As such, it has no defined rule set. While the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 started out as a NASCAR Next Gen chassis, the team has been free to make the necessary changes for it to perform well and endure the rigors of a 24-hour race. It’s an experience that Jordan doesn’t usually get in driving today’s race cars.

“These days, our cars are so homologated that there’s no development other than changing springs, changing bars,” he notes. “But you go there and you say, ‘It’s doing this wrong,’ they’ll develop a new part, they’ll go to the wind tunnel and do some CFD. That part for a driver is super fun, because you can see your feedback actually doing something and actually developing a race car. We’ll do a Sebring test, we’ll go to COTA and there’ll be new parts on the car to try. So for me, it’s super interesting to kind of see the engineering behind it as well.”


While Taylor is referred to as the “coach” for the Garage 56 team, he acknowledges that there’s not a lot of coaching to do with this crowd.

“I’m having a ton of fun, honestly, watching and, and hanging out. I mean, I’m definitely not coaching the drivers. I’m definitely more of a consultant role with giving a sports car perspective, especially from the GT side, of what to expect when you get to Le Mans, what we need to look out for. There’s a lot of logic in the dash like slow zones and pit speed limiters and traction control all that stuff that they’re not used to on the Cup side that I can help with. So that part’s been fun.

“That’s another thing — I’ll say we need something new on the dash for the driver to understand, next session out, we’ve got updates to the dash,” Taylor explains, admitting that he’s also learning a lot himself with the project.

“The people on the team side are super professional,” he relates. “It’s interesting to see how a team like Hendrick operates, all the procedures, debriefs, meetings. And then all the drivers are just incredible. Rocky, multiple Le Mans winner; Jenson, former world champion; Jimmie a seven-time Cup champion. So learning from those guys, seeing how they operate, what they focus on a car development is super interesting. And yeah, everyone’s just having a great time. There’s no real pressure for performance from an inner-team battle like there would usually be.”

The Garage 56 project gave Jordan an in with Hendrick, and the team a good look at him. So when they needed someone to fill in for Chase Elliott, out with a broken leg form a snowboarding accident, in the NASCAR Cup race at Circuit of The Americas, he was a logical choice. While he doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Cup car — the Garage 56 car is quickly becoming a different animal than the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 he drove at COTA — he qualified fourth. The race didn’t go the way he wanted (read Kelly Crandall’s story about Jordan “surviving” his first NASCAR race here) but he came away with a respect for the different style of racing than he’s used to in sports cars.
Taylor’s “Chase Elliott impression” at COTA may have been a mixed blessing, but provided him another set of experiences to draw on. Motorsport Images

Jordan is almost as well known through social media as from his on-track prowess. Sometimes as himself, sometimes as racing superfan Rodney Sandstorm (and sometimes his pooch Fonzie takes center stage), he’s become pretty adept at entertaining fans and promoting the sport through his posts. So obviously the next logical step was to create his own Discord group, @Sportscar4Lyfe. He was inspired by a triathlete he followed, and he notes the small community feel of triathletes and sports car racing participants and fans.


“He’s one guy that’s been able to capture a lot of the fan base, and he created a Discord server,” Taylor explains. “I went on it and it’s amazing how much interaction and conversation goes on between the fans and people becoming friends through it and going to triathlon events. And they’re hosting events and meetups and stuff like that. So for me, sports car racing has a ton of amazing, passionate fans and there’s no one place for them to kind of go and have conversations and gossip and talk about rumors; so I created it and it’s gone super well so far.”

He admits to not having a full grasp of how Discord works and what it could do, but fans have been leading him through it. And in only a few weeks of the group’s existence, people are having conversations and arranging meetups at races. At Sebring, Sportscar 4 Lyfe and Jordan hosted a wing-eating contest. He has more plans, such as 5k runs around the tracks or track walks with fans.


“It’s just a way to get more behind the scenes and give the fans kind of what they deserve,” Taylor says. “I think once we start doing more events and word of mouth spreads, we should attract some more. And it’s not just sports cars. I know it’s called Sportscar 4 Lyfe, but we’ve got IndyCar, Formula 1, NASCAR … everything in the channel for people to follow. Everyone’s friendly on there. We haven’t had any crazy people enter it and cause any mayhem — although I’m sure that’s gonna happen at some point. I think it’s fun. We’ve got simulator stuff, people sharing their online racing. We’ll probably host iRacing series events, have our own little Sportscar 4 Lyfe championship. The options are kind of endless of what we do with it.”

“Endless” seems an apt description for what Jordan is eager to do, both in and out of motorsports, but particularly when he can help grow enthusiasm for sports car racing. There’s no doubt that the Taylor family has made an indelible mark on motorsports, and Wayne Taylor’s youngest son has been a big part of that.