French Connection: Allez, Allez! NASCAR Is About to Take On Le Mans

From the June 2023 issue of Car and Driver.

Break out your American-flag shirt and grab your passport, because NASCAR is headed to France for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The crossover isn’t as strange as it might seem. American sports-car teams have long been vying for glory on the Mulsanne straight at the famed endurance race, but NASCAR has only been to Le Mans once before.

Each year, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) welcomes a team to Le Mans to participate in the Garage 56 program, an exhibition class created in 2012 to encourage technical innovation. Past G56 racers have run on alternative fuels or featured cockpits equipped for disabled drivers, with two teams from the latter category being the only G56 entries to have ever finished the race. For 2023, the ACO invited NASCAR to compete in the Garage 56 spot to bring the rowdy V-8 NASCAR experience to Europe.

Even though NASCAR runs road courses, endurance racing has different rules and challenges. So it’s not as simple as just shipping over a Cup Series car. NASCAR chose Hendrick Motorsports, the most successful team in NASCAR’s premier class, to go to France. This year’s G56 entry will be a Camaro ZL1 Cup Car, modified for the long hours and difficult racing conditions at Le Mans. “We had to adapt it to make it an endurance vehicle,” says Brandon Thomas, vice president of vehicle design. “But it’s a Cup car in spirit.”

Check out the photo gallery to learn more about how NASCAR modified the Camaro stock car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

A Bicentennial Party

In 1976, with gas prices high and track attendance low, the ACO invited NASCAR to send over a couple of its big V-8-powered cars to battle with Porsches and prototypes at Le Mans. A Dodge Charger and a Ford Torino made the journey, but neither survived the 24 hours.

A Notorious 56

Nissan campaigned the odd-looking Deltawing in 2012, G56’s inaugural year. A study in aerodynamics and weight reduction, the oddly shaped, narrow-front-track wingless design (nearly all downforce came from its diffuser) could run while sipping a fraction of the fuel and using fewer tires. It weighed just over 1000 pounds and successfully hit the pace the ACO requested (between prototype and GT racers). It retired on lap 76 after making contact with a barrier, but that was after it made good on its goal and returned 8.8 mpg at race pace. That’d be just as shocking as a production car getting 100 mpg.

Associate News Editor

Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.