Garage 56 Is Latest Bridge Between NASCAR, 24 Hours of Le Mans by France Family

• A Cadillac V-Series.R and a Porsche 963 from teams competing in IMSA’s GTP class and a Camaro headed for Garage 56 crossed the Atlantic in May ahead of this month's 24 Hours of Le Mans.

• The Camaro ZL1 that will race from the Garage 56 reserved for special entries at Le Mans was France’s idea before the Next Gen cars ever hit the track.

• The Garage 56 visit may also help promote the NASCAR EuroSeries, which has a 12-race schedule of sprint races on road courses in six countries this year.

The relationship between the France family of Daytona Beach, Fla., and the 24 Hours of Le Mans has occasionally hit some bumps in the road. But this year, some of the same cars that competed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona plus a NASCAR Cup Series Camaro ZL1 will be racing at Le Mans, which confirms the current love affair is on a smooth track.

A decade ago, the relationship was on the rocks. When Don Panoz announced an American sports car series using the Le Mans rulebook in 1998, that led to the launch of the rival Grand American Road Racing Series by the Frances, owners of the Daytona International Speedway and NASCAR. “The Atlantic Ocean,” said a staffer working in their offices in Daytona Beach, “wasn’t big enough.”

But during May, a Cadillac V-Series.R and a Porsche 963 from teams competing in IMSA’s GTP class and a Camaro headed for Garage 56 crossed the Atlantic, headed for Le Mans. That’s due to the vision of Jim France, chairman and CEO of NASCAR.

The younger brother of the late Bill France Jr., Jim France remained a fan of Le Mans despite the political upheaval, which found him directing the Grand-Am Series that squared off with Panoz’s American Le Mans Series. It was the younger France who ended the ALMS-Grand Am wars in 2012.

The process of unifying American sports car racing, which created the current WeatherTech Championship, initially began in 2008 before the Great Recession temporarily scuttled negotiations between France and Panoz. According to informed sources, NASCAR Holdings, which owned Grand-Am, paid close to $30 million to Panoz four years later in the deal that included Road Atlanta and the lease to the Sebring International Raceway as well as the IMSA sanctioning body.

NASCAR chairman France more recently acted as the chief architect on the American side of the new and ballyhooed convergence with Le Mans that will have IMSA GTP hybrid cars competing in the Hypercar category against the Le Mans Hypercars at this year’s race.

And that Camaro ZL1 that will race from the Garage 56 reserved for special entries at Le Mans? It was France’s idea before the Next Gen cars ever hit the track. Once Dallara had completed its chassis concept for the new generation of NASCAR racer, France broached the subject to Pierre Fillon, president of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest that sanctions Le Mans.

“I was in the process of working with Dallara on the new car,” said France. “I was at dinner with Pierre—before the Rolex in 2019. I talked to him about we had this new car coming. I asked him if it was possible to bring one over for the Garage 56 and run a NASCAR car at Le Mans. We started working on it from there.”