NASCAR Stock Car Looks Ridiculous, Goes Fast at Le Mans

This year's hotly anticipated 24 Hours of Le Mans will be remembered for two things. At the front, four new factory entries debuting in the same season mean that the hundredth anniversary race promises its most competitive field ever. Just behind them, though, is the other thing that makes this year's race special: the Automobile Club l'Ouest let NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports bring a modified version of one of their Camaro stock cars to run the whole race.

This entry, the latest in the Garage56 program that has previously given this race a Deltawing and a Nissan that is for legal purposes explicitly not to be called a Deltawing, is exactly what you are thinking. That is a stock car, built to the Next Gen specs raced on a weekly basis in NASCAR since last year, with modifications necessary for it to run competitive laps and survive 24 hours at the Circuit de la Sarthe. It is no surprise that the resulting car looks and sounds ferocious, but you may be surprised to learn just how fast it actually is.

After months of installing and testing major upgrades, the Garage56 Camaro is more than just quick enough to keep up with the GT2-spec cars running in GTE-Am. Through one day of testing, the car's quickest time of 3:53.761 is more than two seconds faster than any time set by a car built to the race's standard GT regulations.