Nascar and Hendrick Motorsports announced that the two organizations will work together to put a modified Next Gen stock car in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023.
The collaboration will also include efforts from IMSA, Chevrolet and Goodyear. Chad Knaus, former Cup Series crew chief and current Vice President of Competition at Hendrick Motorsports, will oversee the project. The Next Gen stock car’s driver roster for the endurance race, along with technical details, will be announced at a later date. The proposed stock car entry must first be approved by race organizer l’Automobile Club de l’Ouest.
The proposed entry would fill the Garage 56 slot at Le Mans. Garage 56 is considered a “showcase” competition slot, and the entry does not compete for points in the championship. Instead, the race car in Garage 56 exists to show off innovation brought to Le Mans, as would be the case with the Next Gen stock car.
“It’s been almost 50 years since my father [Bill France Jr.] took Nascar over to Le Mans,” said Jim France, CEO of Nascar and IMSA, at a press conference on March 17th. “I talked to Rick [Hendrick] along the way if it would be something that he would be interested in doing. He’s our championship team, the winningest team in our Cup Series. I felt like that would be very, very important if he would represent our sport in this big event.”
Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports, said, “It’s just going to be exciting for us. To partner with Chevrolet and Goodyear, Nascar, our guys are fired up. We want to represent our sport.”
The entry into Garage 56 at Le Mans will be a Next Gen Camaro ZL1. However, instead of the traditional internal combustion engine, the race car will likely feature a hybridized propulsion system, a setup that was not possible with previous generations of Nascar stock cars.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM-related Nascar news, GM motorsports and racing news, Chevy Camaro news, Chevy news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
What a fitting end to a car that’s allegedly on it’s way out…..
Lets just see what they have planned as they have not said yet.
Chevy would not be investing if they were leaving.
What is the rule for competing? Doesn’t the vehicle have to be in production?
Garage 56 has been the home of many non-production racers. It’s an exhibition class, and draws lots of interest from the press. I gather, that’s the intent here.
Yes this is just a test yo see how the car dorks and if there is interest in a class.
Their goals are to finish and not finish last as stated at the intro.
This could really be a big deal. With the Australian Touring Cars being so similar and if they start this in Europe they could inter race with each other and meet up at large events Like Le Mans, Daytona and in Australia.
This could also help fill fields that at some events are declining due to high cost and inflation.
Racing is in for a tough future under present conditions and this may be a way they can create a true global racing series that could be involved in the biggest races at the most historic tracks.
I am fascinated by the idea, however, Rick Hendrick appears to be the Joe Biden of motorsports lately. As inflation heading in the direction that its going, & the world economy ready to follow, we’ll be watching how long Chevrolet & NASCAR pumps money into a project that hasn’t turned a lap yet.
Rick is far from Biden.
This project has been testing for a while now. They have been testing light, tires, and even a diesel engine. They are looking at a number of options to try to create this into a class that can race in a number of sanctioning bodies.
With the inflation we are seeing now this could not be a better time as companies will be cutting back on racing. Lower cost cars could help save these series from having smaller fields.
Also this could bring new interest to other racing events many are not watching now.
I’m not up to date on NASCAR anymore, but I assume that’s a good thing? If Hendrick were the Trump of Motorsports, the team would have gone bankrupt, yeah?
Get your sports from CNN?
@ C8.R
Don’t waste your time with that guy he is a complete idiot.
ahhh…poor little fellers angry..haha…its okay little man, don’t get your panties in a wad.
Who said I was angry? I wrote a comment I didn’t write it in all capitals so what are you talking about?
It is ok it was easy to tell.
I assume this car will have to have real headlights & tail lights & not decals? LOL
Yes real head and tail lamps as well wipers and may even have side windows.
They have even reported a Diesel engine was tested.
This is just a proof of concept and once they show it to be viable they will need to find rules that would bring the cars closer like from Australian Touring and NASCAR to what IMSA and WEC would like to run.
This could draw in many more MFGS of all types.
The SCCA could even look to bring Trans Am in on this.
To bad they cannot run Michelin tires to make the best showing.
Do you mean like at Indy in 2005 where they could not go ten laps.
Goodyear will provide the tires as requested like they do now. They could do a 500 mile tire if they wanted but NASCAR wants only so many laps to make tire changes required.
One year goodyear was worried about the left front tires at Daytona. They came with one strong enough some teams did run the race on that same tire.
All MFG are about equal in what they provide. Depending on what the series wants for compound, Depending on what teams use for set ups as they do not always follow recommendations and depending on how the weather is as often testing is not the same as the race.
There is still hope that “Camaro Lives on”. Kind of like then the ran the trike car years ago with the weird 3 wheel looks.
If not for people with different thoughts on design. Kind of like EV’s not for everybody, but whole lot of people betting on them. I’ll stay with my ICE car. till the FALSE rumor on milage is fixed on EV’s.