Even if it doesn’t rain hard enough to make concept cars spin around, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is a tough race that tires out its competitors. But the Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 stock car wasn’t one of them; it was the 24th vehicle to cross the finish line. The NASCAR Next Gen chassis will never be able to finish a race as brutal as this one, but the engine didn’t need as much work as you might think. Russ O’Blenes, who is in charge of racing and speed at GM, will explain. O’Blenes says that the small block Chevy-based R07 V8 only needed minor changes at Le Mans to last a race almost five times as long as the Daytona 500. He said the only changes he made to the 5.99-liter, 358-cubic-inch, two-valve, pushrod motor were to lower the rpm range to make it last longer and remove the restrictor plate that NASCAR required. I’m done for now. Really. After that, GM and its race partners spent 30 hours on the dyno recreating the entire Le Mans weekend, including all heat cycles. The whole powertrain was then tried on a different dyno for another 30 hours. The Next Gen’s frame was changed a lot. It now has a Camaro body, a paddle-shifted transmission, aggressive aero, and hundreds of pounds less weight. When the engine was done, it was put in the frame. Ultimately, the Camaro qualified 37th, better than all the GTE cars. It ended 39th overall, which was the second-lowest of all the vehicles. Who should worry about this? It was just a show; there wasn’t any fight. There are no prizes to be won; all that is needed is a reason to send a stock car to Le Mans for the first time in almost 50 years and a chance to send the Camaro out on a high note. Also, no matter what happened, the jokes made the whole thing worth it.
