A Camaro at Le Mans? All possible thanks to coordination between IMSA and NASCAR, its parent company. Photograph Courtesy NASCAR/Getty Images
Garage 56 originated in 2012 as a one-car, exhibition-only class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for vehicles that showed advanced technology but didn’t fit in one of the established classes. The first Garage 56 car–so named because each Le Mans entry has a garage, and there had long been 55 of them–was the oddball but successful DeltaWing, styled by Chip Ganassi Racing designer Ben Bowlby and built by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers company.
This year, Garage 56 was filled by a Hendrick Motorsports-built NASCAR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, modified considerably to take advantage of the aero bits and pieces that NASCAR doesn’t allow. IMSA President John Doonan oversaw the project, and Hendrick’s Greg Ives crew chiefed the entry.
For Doonan, who led Mazda’s winning racing program, it was a welcome chance to climb back on the pit box. What will he remember about the experience years from now?
“Two things struck me,” he says. “One is the way the fans, the media, the other race teams, the other crewmembers magnetized to the project. They were really excited about it. I thought they would like it, but they loved it.
“On a more personal side, when I watched the partners–Goodyear, Chevy, Hendrick, NASCAR and IMSA–and I saw everybody take it all in the way that they did, that was special. We had some team members who had never been outside the U.S., and for them to be so wide-eyed and excited about being in France made me so happy.
“In the end, it was like we’d all been at summer camp for two weeks, and when it came time to say goodbye, it was emotional. We were all on a journey together, and we accomplished what we wanted to and it was amazing. If LeMans was the Olympics of auto racing, we were truly Team USA, and I think we represented the NASCAR brand well.”
Ives, a NASCAR crew chief who has won races with drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Alex Bowman, agrees. “John has a heart of gold, and you know that from the moment you meet him, the enthusiasm that he has,” he says. “Maybe the best part of a project like this is the people you meet along the way, and John is one of those.
“You can be having a bad day and you may not think things are going well and you may have some frustration, but as soon as he walks in the door, he just has a presence that makes you want to smile, and your attitude improves a little bit. In the end, John’s experience in sports car racing and endurance racing in particular helped so much. He knows how to lead a team and get the best out of everybody, and I definitely felt that when I was working with John.”
The ACO, the sanctioning body for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was afraid the 3000-pound Camaro would be very slow in the Porsche Curves, possibly stacking up traffic behind it. So organizers planned to wave a white flag at the entrance of the curves, signifying a slow car is ahead. “That flag disappeared after a couple of laps,” Ives says, laughing. “They knew they didn’t need it.”
The usual small problems, such as brakes and sensors, were factors, but it wasn’t until about 4 hours were left in the race that the lone major problem reared its head: a transmission failure.
Knowing that a solid finish among the GT cars wasn’t going to happen–yes, the Garage 56 racer wasn’t technically racing, but tell that to Doonan, Ives and drivers Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller–so they took their time making sure the car was perfect before sending it back out. They lost more than an hour, dropping them overall from about 27th to 39th, where they finished out of 62 cars.
And how fast was it? The winning Corvette was the fastest GT car, notching a best lap of 3:50.439. The Camaro’s fastest lap was an incredible 3:50.512, faster than every other GT car, including the Ferraris, Porsches and Aston Martins. In the end it covered 285 laps, beating 12 of the GT cars.
