In June, NASCAR shook the world when a Cup Series Next Gen car started and finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a Garage 56 entry. This weekend, the programme will be “revived” for the Goodwood Festival of Speed‘s Hillclimb as Jenson Button and Mike Rockenfeller pilot its backup car.
The Le Mans car, a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, is relatively the same as the standard competition counterpart in the Cup Series save for differences in aspects like size and paddle shift sequential as well as headlights to meet the gruelling demands of 24-hour endurance racing. While Garage 56 cars are not expected to be competitive, Button, Rockenfeller, and Jimmie Johnson set times comparable to the LMGTE class and finished thirty-ninth overall.
“The Garage 56 programme has been an overwhelming success for us in further introducing motorsports fans from around the world to NASCAR,” said IMSA president and Garage 56 manager John Doonan. “Taking the Garage 56 car to the Goodwood Festival of Speed gives us another chance to bring the world of stock cars to fans of a wide variety of motorsports.”
Rockenfeller will first run the Hillclimb in the car on Thursday, 13 July at 2:30 PM BST, followed by stints on Friday at 3:10 PM, Saturday at 8:30 AM, and Sunday at 9:15 AM. Button will do so on Friday at 9:10 AM, Saturday at 2:55 PM, and Sunday at 3:50 PM.
The car will be part of NASCAR’s 75-year celebration at Goodwood, with many other vehicles throughout the sanctioning body’s history also present. Ed Berrier, who raced in the Cup Series in the late 1990s, set the sixteenth fastest time in the 2022 Hillclimb in a 2016 Cup Camaro. Button finished eighth driving the Nitrocross FC1-X.
