The Le Mans Garage 56 Edition

Reilly Brennan (RPB) is a transportation investor at Trucks Venture Capital and author of the widely-followed Future of Transportation newsletter. Past contributions to WITI include the Nancy Meyers Leaf Blower Edition, the Postal Truck Edition and the Bidirectional Battery Edition.

Reilly here. This weekend is the centenary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the famous endurance motor race run in the Loire region of northern France. The cars all look a little different; it is not a traditional ‘formula’ race like NASCAR or F1 where the silhouettes are all alike.

Although this style of motorsport can be difficult to understand – different types of cars run on track at the same time, each running their own class race (imagine the freshman, junior-varsity and varsity football teams all playing simultaneously) – the 24 Hours of Le Mans is easier to grasp because of its utter insanity, laid bare in its title. We all appreciate that doing something for an entire day is difficult, and that the human body isn’t really made to do much for 24 hours straight, and certainly not at 200 mph. Even if a human could do something that long, surely their machines would break first.

This is what makes endurance sports so special, because we are witness to exceptional performance multiplied by the difficulty of time. In that endeavor, simply completing the race is an accomplishment. Finishing first, however, feels closer to something celestial.

This year, amidst the French cigarette smoke and exotic hypercars from Ferrari, Porsche and Toyota, there will be one particularly unusual vehicle: an asphalt-thumping NASCAR race car, with a V-8 engine tuned out of North Carolina and a driver by the name of Jimmie Johnson. This is the special ‘Garage 56’ entry into the race, competing in a class all its own.

Is that a NASCAR race car in France? The blue Chevrolet Camaro looks out of place at Le Mans, but also fits right in.

Why Is This Interesting?

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the oldest motor races in the world and has all of the tradition and heritage you would expect from a century-old French organization. Teams must apply to race in the event and all follow the strict guidelines set forth by the sanctioning body.

With this backdrop, the concept of ‘Garage 56’ is so notable. The car in this class is not part of the official Le Mans competition and doesn’t follow technical regulations, yet it runs in the race anyway. When this was introduced in 2012, organizers said, ' the idea is to leave as much room for creativity as possible.’

Consider any other major sporting organization with heritage baggage – the Masters, Wimbledon, et al – taking their centerpiece event and introducing a complete anomaly, devoid of rules, running while their main stars are also on field. It is a specific kind of creativity that allows this type of counterprogramming, and it allows Le Mans to remain one of the most significant sporting events in the world.

Comparing the version of the NASCAR at Le Mans (left) vs the one that races at Talladega (right). Since NASCAR races are only a few hours and run on Sundays, the cars don’t typically have headlights (just fake stickers). But at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, they are a necessity.

The race begins at 3PM local time in France (9AM Eastern) on Saturday.

Nascar G56 Night Onboard ✨ I 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans I FIA WEC

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Reilly (RPB)

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