Le Mans vs. NASCAR | The Divide of Motorsport 

Cadillac in the hypercar class getting podium , corvette winning the GTE class and the Garage56 car finishing the race was all extremely impressive for GM, Hopefully with IMSA and WEC working together, NASCAR bringing more international drivers like Kimi Raikkonen and Shane Van Gisberg, Indycar getting Kyle Larson and the SRX series. We enter an age of motorsport community where we all respect each different disciplines whether 2 wheels or 4 and off-road or asphalt.

It's the 100th year since the beginning, but not the 100th event. That's another decade ahead.

the fact the pit crew was 5th in the pitstop challenge using a manual jack shows just how insane nascar pitstops are. i know f1 pitstops are crazy but they have someone on every corner of the car, while nascar and le mans do one side then the other with a more limited number of people, so they cant really be compared

In an interview with Jimmie Johnson during the race, he said that during a full course caution that he could see large groups of spectators waving and cheering at him as he passed by the stands. This car was a fan-favorite all week leading up to and during the race.

That Camaro could have finished near 20th overall if they didn't have to do a gearbox replacement. It was faster than every GTE and had a roster of legends who could have plucked off some of the slower Dentist-piloted LMP2s.

I'm a muscle car guy and I loved that they raced the cup car. People forget that even old impalas used to race in Europe back in the day

The fact that it even finished the race at all is a big W for Nascar. If this doesn’t attract newcomers to watch stock car racing idk what will.

I like all types of automobile motorsports

As a long time NASCAR fan, you were impressed to see a NASCAR stock car drive on a road course? That's awesome. NASCAR has been going to road courses for years and I honestly wish they did more road courses. I was happy to see them in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Definitely seemed to be the loudest car out there.

This has to be the future of Nascar. The Aero and full lights looks absolutely fantastic on the cup cars. I've never been a fan but some of the events they are doing are finally shaking things up. With the Colosseum event in LA and the street race coming up in Chicago things are really changing. The caveat is that this will upset lots of traditional oval racing fans. It's a tough needle to thread but I hope they pull it off and come up with something truly modern and unique for the future of the sport.

Been a fan of nascar since 2007 and i never ever thought that I would see a Nascar Stock Car in what is considered by many the most important race in Motorsports. The beautiful V8 Sound and the looks were awesome to see 🔥💯

What's hilarious to me is that it's running a FIVE SPEED gearbox. AT LE MANS. If they optimized the aero a bit more for higher top speeds, added a 6 or even 7 speed sequential, and gave it some more power (it was HEAVILY detuned), it would easily be running LMP2-level lap times. I'd love to see Cup Cars become a fully homologated FIA WEC category. How fucking cool would that be?!

I think i speak for everyone when saying that this car needs to be brought back for more races and events. Its just too cool to be left alone after one race.

And the only car without doors!!! The crowd loved the sound of the cup car. It thundered down the track.

Just a simple correction: this being the centennial event doesn't mean they've been doing it for over 100 years, it means they started it exactly 100 years ago. It wasn't the OVER 100th anniversary, and also it was the 93rd even. France was a little "occupied" between 1939 and 1945.

The Chevy ran very well, finishing in the top third of LMGTE and running as high as 4th in that class. The noise from that thundering small block wowed the crowd and drowned out the other cars, you could hear it coming before you could see it. The engineers admitted they were giving up 7 minutes for the necessary brake change mid race because the car is not set up for it. That’s over 2 laps. Hats off to Hendricks and NASCAR for showing the rest of the world that big cars can go fast too.

They ran Le Man's back in the 70s and 80s. The only reason why they came back this year was to show how much nascar has advanced since then.( FUN FACT: They were put in their own class called the innovative class) Imma be honest they really have improved since then.

NASCAR was legit at Sonoma this past weekend lol. They have been doing road courses for a long time, but people still only think of NASCAR as left turns

This was a _huge_ victory for Nascar. For years, they've been trying to slowly change to a more "normal" style of racing, and its cost them most of the fan base. (CoT, playoffs, more road courses, racing in the rain, etc.) All decent ideas, just poorly implemented. With this G56 project, they took those ideas and put them on full display, and it worked. The majority of the fan base _loved_ it. I guarantee this will not be the last time we see this car. I'd wager some good money on it running the 24h of Daytona next year.

Edit 1: Jenson* not Jeremy, my b. 😅 Edit 2: Apparently people don't believe me. This was a true conversation that occured on Saturday, about 30mins after launch in a box. I was ecstatic about it going out there, to which someone disgruntly commented "I hate that it's out there." I responded, "sorry?" He said "It makes no sense to have a car plated in "NASCAR" be here, it'a disgrace to the motorsport." I started to get a little upset to which I said "I don't believe that should matter. Motorsport innovation and getting more eyeballs is what keeps this entire thing alive. If we don't try new things, we'll fail and motorsport will stop existing." This is when he scoffed and said "NASCAR, its fans, and all the americans that are around that car have no business being at Le Mans. It's like having a NASCAR in Formula 1, you wouldn't do it." So I responded with "Yeah well we've been known for having the same scrutiny back in the mid 90's and it seemed to work out all right" He joked a bit after that and so did I, but his opinion on that car being out there didn't change. Even after I argued that the progression of motorsport is 100% up to us. For NASCAR to try things that are exciting, is good. For F1 to launch Drive To Survive to help its awarenes in America, is good. Even though we may not agree with every single thing it does, it has single handidly improved the reception of the motorsport and all the brands it works with. So for those in this thread saying "that conversation didn't happen" or "well the people I talked to loved it" I have to disagree. I won't let this one person be the voice of an entire community, but I can say that there were people who did not think that car belonged there, and had no issue telling me, a stranger, that he thought it was dumb and unnecessary. 99% of the fans at Le Mans loved it. I interacted with hundreds of people there. All awesome, all thought it was "good fun." Just sharing an opinion of one person WHO IS LIKELY to have others who think that his statement is valid, and I wanted to share that with RU-vid. Hope this helps :) Original Post I was at Le Mans and a French person said “NASCAR Fans and more Americans have no Business being at Le Mans, it ruins the motorsport” and I simply replied, “Yeah well we came here under the same scrutiny in 1944 and it seemed to work out all right” 😅 I’m sorry, but the arrogance of stating that the purity of a motorsport is ruined by innovation and marketing is silly to me. What do you think? Let me know and don’t forget to subscribe here! - bit.ly/3kXgWr0 🎉🎉🎉

I know what the articles said about the HP of the garage 56 but I know the guys that built that car and engine, It was pushing out between 750-800HP. It was 600 pounds lighter then the standard NASCAR, wider tires, rims and lighter too, the fenders were wider too. But most of the difference was in the cockpit... They were going to finish way ahead of the GTE cars but a gearbox started going bad 20 hours into the race, so they spent over an hour in the garage changing it so they finish 39.

I don’t watch nascar but I was sooooo impressed! It looked so out of place but at the same time it looked like it belongs there! Loved watching that car screaming! Now we need a nascar category… never thought I would ever say that 😂😊

Now that we've seen the capability of Nascar in Le Mans, they need to put them in IMSA.

Another weird thing is that the Hendrick Camaro was almost road legal. The only mods if would've needed are treaded tyres and number plates for it to be legally allowed to drive into Le Mans itself. When was the last time a current NASCAR race car was under $1,000 from being road legal?

Hopefully you'll be there next year. Interested to see how the Mustang GT3 competes next year, especially with Ford being an up and coming powerplant supplier for F1

I found out about NASCAR when Jeff Gordon (24 Hendrick car) was winning back in the early-mid 90s, he found JJ (48 car) and they won 11 championships combined.

Late 70’s there were a couple entries at LeMans from NASCAR. Dodge and Ford, out on lap 2, and at the 11 hour mark respectively. Still, it’s good to see some US based cars there competing now that the manufacturers have their shyt together and the engineers and drivers are more equipped to handle this type of motor sport. I dig the effort and effect, and your enthusiasm about it.

What if I told you that NASCAR has a few road course races during the regular season. They have been making right turns for quite some time. As a matter of fact, they raced Sonoma this past weekend.

NASCAR be like WTF is a kilometer *bald eagle screech*

Im not a huge, "YEEE MURICA" kinda guy really, but it made me so hyped and patriotic to have a Camaro lol I havent been following NASCAR too closely in recent years since I was a kid, but they definitely have been doing more road tracks and such throughout the season. And these new cars with the sequential transmissions and such are pretty rad!

Probs worth putting in that the camaro had a bunch of mods to make it more competitive ~ new sequential box, mega weight reduction and some other things too but still an amazing achievement regardless for what is ostensibly a brick on wheels

If not for that driveshaft failure that left if out of the race for over an hour, the new NASCAR Camaro could have finished as high as 24th-27th overall, which wouldn't have been a bad finishing spot given how many hypercars/LMP2 cars were in the field.

The NASCAR cup series races at 6 road courses per year so they kindof already do that but some of the best and most exciting races have lately been at the 1½ mile ovals. Their annual dirt race is crazy cool as well, and the superspeedway races are 190mph games of chess. I highly recommend giving the sport a chance! #KFB🎱

I've just watched a another video about it. It had 750bhp, weighed about 300kgs less than a cup car and had 50% more downforce. They went all in on this one. I'm a Eurocentric Brit by the way but still thought it was really cool. The 5th fastest stop without air jacks was amazing work.

Wish there was a road racing Nascar championship series based off this car with multiple manufacturers with 2 cars per team like F1 but competitive like V8 supercars in Australia!!!

This should become an actual streetcar that you can buy

Bro the camaro looks like a pace car

This is the coolest thing NASCAR's ever done, and potentially the closest the US had come to AUS' V8 supercar league or DTM since the Trans-Am IMSA series

This is how NASCAR stays relevant. Bring the stockcars to European competitions

We need more of NASCAR in Le Mans

The best part of all of this is the exhaust notes. You hear like 3 or four high pitch screams by, only to be immediately followed by the ROAR of a V8.

Just something of note: Through the night hours of Le Mans, G56 (3:51) was averaging 6 seconds slower than LMP2 (3:45) and 8 seconds faster than the majority of the GTE (3:58) cars. And that was running 3 seconds slower than their Free Practice fastest lap (3:47). There's even video of it running down the LMP2 leader through the Porsche Curves. As a massive NASCAR fan, and lover of most motorsports, I was over the moon excited for this. I really hope that this is just the beginning of NASCAR and WEC working together. It's probably a pipe dream but I'm hoping this opens the door to it returning for the Rolex 24.

This also wasnt the first time nascar went to le mans for the 24hr. That was back in 1976. Nascar took a dodge charger and a ford torino over but they both failed to finish. The dodge broke on lap one and the torino lasted eleven hours until it too broke.

Nascar also does road courses every season. Over 4th of July weekend, they're going to be going through the streets of Chicago.

You mentioned the rims on the Comaro being lighter. I saw an interview with a tech and he said each rim was 40 lbs lighter than the ones they use in the Cup races.

I love the picture of that massive hog of a car smack in the middle of the other cars. It's a thing of beauty that would make a bald eagle cry.

The Nascar and Cadillac team comming to Le Mans and being in this season of WEC is to mark the merge of IMSA with the FIAWEC, and this edition being the Centenary too made it just perfect with Cadillac finishing in 3rd with a 3 car finish photo and a massive burnout from the French Driver of the cadillac hypercar at the end. a trully beautiful collab between american motorsport and Endurance racing

Was really impressed. yeah they had to do garage time - its Le Mans - but they kept going and thats what counts. From the quali it loked like the extra horses would mean demolishing the GTE feild but - it's Le Mans - so quali is just dreaming. impressed with the Corvette though - they came back to win the GTE group.

It was faster because it wasn't built under the same regulations as the GTE category and as you said the garage is for special cars and innovative ideas.

They really making a live action of Cars 2

Please, NASCAR. Take your nice pretty billboard turned actually good racing car and put it in more international events. This would be a dream to watch

NASCAR is very much an American style of racing. To see how capable and competitive one of our motor sport staples is at one of THE legendary racing events in the world, and not just any race but an endurance race, is an awe inspiring thing!

1:11 poor guy in the top left got caught on camera falling.

I wanna see/hear this Camaro in a MX-5 Cup race now. Mutant species invading unlikely series....

It goes like this: 1) Pikes peak hill climb 2) Indianapolis 500 3) Le Mans

I have to admit, I have had almost zero interest in NASCAR but it was actually really cool and impressive to see this Chevvy Camaro on the track, with some modifications ofc, but managing to be 3-4 seconds faster than GTE Am. Impressive to say the least, and definitely exceeded many people's expectations. This 100th Le Mans race was extremely historic for many reasons such as the NASCAR, Ferrari's return and winning it first time back, having more hypercard manufactures than before. It was amazing!

I`m disappointed that Knaus didn`t have a spring loaded spoiler that lowered at 250 Kph for some top speed action."Active Aero" would be something that was missing. That "barn door" on the deck lid was funny as hell.

That car sounded absolutely glorious.

I think when nascar realized they couldn’t use the actual Gen 7 car at Le Mans, they said let’s have fun wit this Car, would love to see this car Pace the start of a race or at least compete in one even tho it’ll be a little faster

This was such a win for GM. So much positive press.

I loved that Chevy. Brilliant performance and well prepared. Shame about the reliability issues but still very impressive. But let's just bring some facts to this... The Camaro wasn't in DIRECT competition with the GTE cars as they weren't in the same class. LM GTE cars are subject to a strict balance of power regulation and Garage 56 can almost make their own rules within reason (check the Delta Wing G56 entry for example...) If you removed the restrictors from the GTE engines, removed weight and added aero like they did to the Camaro... And basically made them as far from GTE rules as the Camaro was from Stict NASCAR Cup rules the GTE cars would have been long gone. Or for that matter a direct comparison would have been a straight lift of a Cup car without the weight reduction, bigger tyres and aero and just put some lights on it. It would have been painfully slow round a lap. Whilst I loved it being there kets not kid ourselves; it wasn't comparing apples and apples. And contrary to most expectations (Jenson said this in the RACER interview)ts straight line speed wasn't the missile people thought it'd be. About the same as GTE on terminal velocity, 20km/h slower than LMP2 and basically a chicane for the Hypercars. But that sound... ❤

This is unbelievably awesome to see how much innovation and technology these others cars had compared to the cup car, and to see just how close the cup car was to these other cars, when, you think about it, Nascar sticks to its roots with mechanical adjustments and adjustments being made mostly only under put stops.

Straight up, if nascar ran a full circuit serious it would be rowdy. Like the American version of the Australian V8 cup racing. I’d watch

Does know one talk about that guy that fell the stairs on the top left at 1:11 ? 🤣

a lot of people dont actually know this either, but this isnt the first time nascar has ran at le mans! in 1976, there were 2 nascars than ran there, and while neither of them finished, they were given the nickname “les deux monstres” (i think, excuse my french)!

They run an increasing number of what we call road courses every season. They’re sprinkled in there. Actually ran one this weekend at Sonoma

The photo of the grid where you can see it sitting over all the LM cars… also insane

BBS wheels are so iconic at Le Mans that also Motegi Racing MR630 design was inspired from BBS. Motegi wheels on the Ferrari 458GTE were 7 spokes, which was similar with BBS, but from the 488 the spokes were reduced in six.

I’m hoping to see a Corvette GT3.R at the front of the NLS + 24h Nurburgring next year.

1:11 dude in a safari hat on the left hand side of the screen falls on his ass. 😂😂😂

Seeing a stock car by itself instead of in a massive pack of cars just like it is such a different feeling and it's Awesome

A: the nascar garage 56 project is so dope B: the car is built of of the “next gen” platform which is unlike any other car they’ve ever run. It’s built very much like an imsa car. C: nascar currently has more road courses than ever before on its schedule including a street course in Chicago in a couple of weeks. I suggest you check it out.

I mean they've always turned left and right every since year one there's at least been one road course.

This wouldn’t be the first time nascar stock cars raced at Le Mans. They did this in the 70s during the oil crisis.

I love prototypes,but that Camaro was the best and most fascinating car there, bar none.

I don’t watch Le Mans or Nascar and I think this was one of the coolest things ever. I know that it’s a major feat to be able to cross the finish line, especially on your first running. The fact that this car was able to finish and be competitive was really something. People are hung up on “well it broke down and others didn’t” well yeah… lol you have a team that has never built a Le Mans car before going up agains cars specifically engineered FOR Le Mans over years ands years of R&D. Shit back in the day, cars use to drop like flies for various reasons. Now that they’ve experienced it, cataloged, and diagnosed known issues they had, they could come up with solutions for the next one, should the choose to come back

The most impressive part of this Nascar is it’s double the weight with half the tire width and still managed to even keep up. Granted it had a 150hp advantage. But overall the Hp-Lbs advantage was better for everyone everyone not called a Camero I’d really like to see what nascar was originally come to predominance. Stock Car racing. Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday. Real cars you can buy at a dealer slightly modified like someone at home could do.

1:10 top left corner, dude in the white shirt and whit bucket hat.... LMFAO

I'm not a NASCAR fan but this was an epic move. I was glad to see the team perform well. One guy called them YANK TANKS😂😂😂😂😂 and wondered why they climb thru the windows😂😂😂😂.

1:10 top left, i watched that live on eurosport 2

i was absolutely intrigued when I found out they had a NASCAR at le mans, should definitely be a returning competitor imo.

WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🎇🎇🎇

I want like 50/50 road course/oval's in Nascar! Been watching for almost 30 years, and it's time for more road courses!!!!

Ive been watching nascar for as long as i can remember, and loved seeing this team racing at le mans. The fact that everyone was like, "eh, it wont be competitive" and its the fastest of the GTE cars is amazing. Just watching videos of it, it does not fit in at all but i love it.

I know you were watching the nascar going right and left at leman.... they ran Sonoma Sunday too. All the turns this weekend

Also, the NASCAR Cup series has been running "Road courses" which I believe you called "full course" since the 2nd ever race in 1949. They raced 7 in 2021 and 6 22-23. That doesn't even count the ones that truck and xfinity run. SMH. 😂😂😂

This is so awesome!!!!

Thanks for your Positive take on this awesome

The fact that a NASCAR stock car was able to come in and place 36th over makes and models that have competed in this race for decades should immediately quiet any doubters of American motorsports. WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🇺🇸🦅

Who would’ve thought that a Disney movie could’ve predicted this. Looks like Cars 2 really did say a NASCAR could join with Le Mans racers.

There’s a video floating around of the onboard camera capturing the g56 Camaro tracking down an LMP2 and passing it.

Now we need a V8 súper from down under vs the NASCAR car to see which will take the Crown under G56 that will be sick to watch

Love this!!!

Nascar runs at multiple race tracks where they do race on multiple road courses for while now but this was a first that hendrix motorsports built their next gen cup car to race at the 24 hours of le mans

Does Jensen Button have a secret alter ego nobody told me about?

Fav car of the whole event, love how out of place it was and the fact that getting it ready for racing was a case of making it lose 450lbs sticking some wings on it and headlights... bam le mans car. not the first time a nascar has raced the event but great to see Nascar doing it again!

I used to watch nascar as a kid growing up but lost interest as i found other forms of motorsport. My interest is starting to grow again

I like this, i would see more in next year

...did this guy just say "Jeremy" Button? That's 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, put that respect on his name

The divide of motorsport? Really? The top category at Le Mans is SPECIFICALLY stacked thanks to the collaboration between the ACO (Le Mans organisers) and the IMSA which is owned by NASCAR. Hypercars can both race in the WEC and in IMSA's Sportscar championship over in the US. A couple of NASCAR cup cars have raced at Le Mans in the 70s and the G56 is a beautiful symbol of collaboration between the US and France and you should see John Doonan's interviews, he was over the moon about the project.