June 10th WEC Le Mans & Garage 56 Ready to Fight

[Stingray]

As a fan of both Le Mans and NASCAR the weekend's going pretty well so far. It was 20 years ago that I attended Le Mans 24 for the first time in the heyday of C5R and and in 2016 I was at Homestead, Miami to see Jimmie Johnson win his 7th NASCAR championship.

At the time of writing Corvette is leading its class and the Hendrick NASCAR is still going strong.

Some things I learnt this morning about Hendrick's entry at Le Mans,
The NASCAR was lightened so that it complies with the lifting capacity of recovery cranes at Le Mans. Hopefully they won't be needed!
It was lightened mainly by having thinner bodywork and more use of carbon fibre panels. Also lighter wheels.
The position of the car in the field was deliberate - slower than LMP cars but quicker than the GT cars. This year GT cars must have a "gentleman driver" and Hendrick wanted to run with professional drivers only.

It's been an interesting race so far. Mind you, the last five hours are never predictable.

 

[teamzr1]

Mission accomplished.
The Garage 56 contingent completed a years-long journey just after 4 p.m. local time in Le Mans, France, by doing exactly what it set out to: complete the 24-hour endurance race in a modified stock car.
Jimmie Johnson steered the No. 24 across the start/finish line at the end of it in 39th place of the 62-car field.
All told, the Garage 56 entry completed 285 laps – or 2,413.1 miles.

 

[Stingray]

Yes, that'll do nicely with class win for Corvette and a podium for Cadillac as well. They were saying the NASCAR would have been up among the LMP2s if it hadn't been sent to the back of the field on every re-start, as a non-classified entrant.

When I watch the NASCAR later tonight (Sonoma) I;ll be interested to see what comments are made.

 

[teamzr1]

NASCAR has a Garage 56 webage that did updates throughout the race

https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2023/06/10/garage-56-updates-notes-from-24-hours-of-le-mans/

I bet the clowns on TV during the race will be talking about JJ who did less of the driving over the other 2 drivers
Road course race starts at 3:30 PM ET, but if you can get on your T.V 1 hour before on FOX TV there will be lots of yacking by them

 

[Stingray]

The Garage 56 Camaro used at Le Man's made a demonstration run before yesterday's NASCAR race at Charlotte speedway's road course. Very, very fast in its lightened form and a truly spectacular burnout on the front stretch! No doubt there will be some videos on YouTube etc.