NASCAR’s Le Mans triumph: result that shows it’s no ‘tractor’

It took a long time for the race to settle into a rhythm, with various on-track incidents testing multiple Cup champion, but Le Mans rookie, Jimmie Johnson. “It was incredible,”he said. “I had slow zones that took place with two or three big crashes on track. It was a totally different experience to work through those areas and back off. All in all, just an amazing experience.” However, with that typical American flair for good PR, he still found time to engage with his fans. “One of the slow zones, it was a very crowded area with the fans – they were waving at me so I was waving back. It was really, really fun.”

In the dry, the Camaro was evidently a weapon, but the unpredictable rain through the evening, at times torrential, put even the master of mixed conditions, Jenson Button, to the test, the Briton telling Motor Sport. “I mean, the tyres weren’t working so well when it was wet and you were on drys. But the wets were also tricky as we haven’t done a lot of wet testing.”

Johnson backed up this view, following a sudden shower as darkness fell. “It was frightening, especially how it took place – there was a pop-up shower at the start of the lap and it was just pouring. I came around a corner on slicks and it was just a downpour. But we brought the car around and put wets on it to really try to understand how the wets would perform. We probably ran two to three too many laps on the wets and it really fell apart once the track started to dry.”

Through the night and into the early hours of the morning, the team presented the picture of well-oiled efficiency. Sitting outside their pit garage at 3am, they were every bit the seasoned endurance crew, albeit one that recruits its members from a college football team. Highlighting the attention to detail and parallels with athletics, Hendrick even had Evan Kureczka, its pitcrew coach on site.

“We had the opportunity to do some testing before, so this isn’t their first rodeo doing this,” he explained. “We did a roughly 30-hour test in Sebring, so we have some experience on our side. We’ve been working on making sure these guys are hydrated, eat well and actually get a little bit of sleep overnight so they would be sharp in the morning.”

An uneventful night passed, the only hiccup being an unscheduled stop for a slow puncture, picked up by Goodyear’s new pressure and temperature monitoring system (TPMS). This is laminated into the tyre, rather than screwed into the rim and the company is using Le Mans as part of the system’s development process ahead of its introduction in road tyres.

It was well into the closing quarter of the race that trouble struck. Coming out of Indianapolis on lap 253, Button suddenly found his gearbox sounding like a tumble drier full of rocks. Standing next to the car as it rolled into the pits, it was clear the problem was terminal and the transmission toast.

The Xtrac supplied transaxle, identical to that used in Cup cars, beyond the addition of paddle shift, had done admirably but the monster torque of the Chevy R07 ultimately proved too much. Normally, it is not permitted to change a ‘box during the race (thanks to Audi’s shenanigans when it made a quick-change rear end that included the gearbox in 2000) but as Garage 56 is an experimental entry these could be tweaked. After a short conversation between program manager Ben Wright and an ACO official, a couple of text messages were exchanged, and permission was given to swap the box. This was not the work of a moment, and it took over an hour for the car to get back on track, but return it did.

As four o’clock rolled around the Garage 56 Camaro thundered across the line in 39th place; maybe not the finish the team dreamed about, but one it could be rightfully proud of. With NASCAR looking to expand its international presence, the buzz surrounding the Le Mans project has certainly achieved the goal of bringing attention outside the US. The car’s next stop is Brands Hatch for the American Speedfest later this month, and there are murmurings of a European exhibition Cup race in the offing.

But that is it for NASCAR at Le Mans, and as Button summed up. “What an amazing experience. Le Mans is awesome; in the hundredth year, we took a NASCAR stock car racing, and it was quick as well. An amazing weekend, amazing achievement by the whole team. You see why Hendrick and Chevy have won so many championships in NASCAR, they work very hard, but they also have fun while they do it as well, which is awesome. I think even F1 teams can learn from how they go about their racing.”