Mike Conway pulls the IndyCar upset in Long Beach (VIDEO)

By Apr 13, 2014, 6:54 PM EDT
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Ed Carpenter wanted his Verizon IndyCar Series team to contend everywhere besides ovals. So, over the off-season, he went to ovals-only duty as a driver and brought in Mike Conway to race his car on the road and street courses.

It took just two events for the decision to pay off.

After a major multi-car incident on Lap 54 effectively reset the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Scott Dixon emerged as the leader but still had to try and stretch out his fuel to the finish with Conway and the rest of the field chasing after him.

As Conway increased his pressure, a radio transmission from Dixon’s Target Chip Ganassi Racing team disclosed that the defending Verizon IndyCar Series champion would be half a lap short on fuel.

Instead, Dixon came to the pits with two laps remaining, and Conway did the rest by holding back Will Power to claim his second career win at the Beach.

And after being considered an afterthought on the twisty tracks despite its namesake’s recent improvement in road racing acumen, Ed Carpenter Racing has its first victory on a street course.

“I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m actually here,” said Conway, who’s primarily a quiet guy but actually sounded somewhere close to shock in Victory Lane.

“Just an awesome job by the team. We weren’t sure what we had, but we hung in there all the way to the end and it just seemed to come to us…I can’t believe it – two times a Long Beach winner. Unbelievable.”

Conway was one of multiple drivers that was forced to work his way around the aforementioned crash, which started when pole sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay went to the inside of Josef Newgarden after the latter had just emerged with the lead following a pit stop.

Going into Turn 4, Hunter-Reay made contact with Newgarden and both of them went into the wall. By the time the melee was over, James Hinchcliffe, Takuma Sato, and Tony Kanaan had also been collected and eliminated from the race.

Conway credited team member Lee Bentham for helping him navigate through the chaos to ensure he’d have a shot at the win.

“Luckily, he told me to stay right [over the radio] and I stayed right through the corner,” he added to NBCSN. “I saw the two on the left and then another two came together and speared right, so I managed to get in between and that was it.”

The race restarted with 16 laps to go and Conway was in fourth behind leader Dixon, Justin Wilson and Power. But off the restart, Dixon and Wilson came together going into Turn 8, and the latter went into the runoff with terminal damage.

Another caution brought about what would be the final restart of the race with 10 to go, and this time, Conway was on the rear wing of Dixon, who had emerged unscathed from the run-in with Wilson.

Dixon, known as perhaps the best fuel conservation man in all of IndyCar, had last pitted on Lap 44 and was trying desperately to not only save fuel but keep Conway in his rear view mirror.

Unfortunately for him, it was not to be.

“We were only about half a lap short, but the last thing I wanted to do was run out of gas in front of the whole field and cause a big accident,” Dixon said.

The New Zealander was also remorseful for the contact with Wilson, whom he wasn’t expecting to be on the outside of him.

“You’re looking to the right [at Turn 8] and I obviously got into him,” he said. “I felt a little tap there but I apologize to him and his whole team.”

Power’s run to second wasn’t a clean one either, as he made contact with Simon Pagenaud going into Turn 6 and sent him into the tires there on a Lap 32 restart.

Afterwards, the IndyCar points leader admitted he was surprised that he didn’t get a penalty for the contact and apologized to Pagenaud, who recovered to finish fifth.

However, the Frenchman’s in-car camera spotted him wagging a finger at the Australian on the cool-down lap – and he indicated that he wasn’t in the mood to accept Power’s mea culpa either.

“Did I want to hear his apology? I thought it was a little late for that,” he said.

With Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe sidelined after the big crash, Carlos Munoz picked up the Andretti Autosport banner and took it to the podium with a third-place finish in his Long Beach debut.

“My teammates had some bad luck, but it’s racing – it’s happened to me a long time ago,” Munoz said. “But I’m really happy for the third place. Those were some great last laps…I have to thank my crew, who did an awesome job on pit stops.”

Also doing well was Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished fourth and came away with the first Top-5 finish in his return to open-wheel racing after a seven-year run in NASCAR.

VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES – Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
Unofficial Results
1. 20-Mike Conway
2. 12-Will Power
3. 34-Carlos Munoz (rookie)
4. 2- Juan Pablo Montoya
5. 77-Simon Pagenaud
6. 7-Mikhail Aleshin (rookie)
7. 16-Oriol Servia
8. 25-Marco Andretti
9. 17-Sebastian Saavedra
10. 18-Carlos Huertas (rookie)
11. 3-Helio Castroneves
12. 9-Scott Dixon
ONE LAP DOWN
13. 15-Graham Rahal
THREE LAPS DOWN
14. 11-Sebastien Bourdais
15. 98-Jack Hawksworth (rookie)
—
16. 19-Justin Wilson, Lap 64, Contact
17. 8-Ryan Briscoe, Lap 60, Running
18. 10-Tony Kanaan, Lap 55, Contact
19. 67-Josef Newgarden, Lap 55, Contact
20. 28-Ryan Hunter-Reay, Lap 55, Contact
21. 27-James Hinchcliffe, Lap 55, Contact
22. 14-Takuma Sato, Lap 55, Contact
23. 83-Charlie Kimball, Lap 41, Off-Course

With throaty roar, NASCAR Next Gen Camaro is taking Le Mans by storm on global stage

Associated PressJun 8, 2023, 4:00 PM EDT
Le Mans 24 Hour Race - Car Parade
Chris Graythen/Getty Images
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LE MANS, France — The V8 engine of the NASCAR Chevrolet Camaro has a distinct growl that cannot go unnoticed even among the most elite sports cars in the world at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

When the Hendrick Motorsports crew fired up the car inside Garage 56, NASCAR chairman Jim France broke into a huge grin and gave a thumbs up.

“The only guy who didn’t cover his ears,” laughed seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson.

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France has been waiting since 1962 – the year his father, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., brought him to his first 24 Hours of Le Mans – to hear the roar of a stock car at the most prestigious endurance race in the world.

A path finally opened when NASCAR developed its Next Gen car, which debuted last year. France worked out a deal to enter a car in a specialized “Innovative Car” class designed to showcase technology and development. The effort would be part of NASCAR’s 75th celebration and it comes as Le Mans marks its 100th.

Once he had the approval, France persuaded Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear – NASCAR’s winningest team, manufacturer and tire supplier – to build a car capable of running the twice-around-the-clock race.

The race doesn’t start until Saturday, but NASCAR’s arrival has already been wildly embraced and France could not be more thrilled.

“Dad’s vision, to be able to follow it, it took awhile to follow it up, and my goal was to outdo what he accomplished,” France told The Associated Press. “I just hope we don’t fall on our ass.”

The car is in a class of its own and not racing anyone else in the 62-car field. But the lineup of 2010 Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller, 2009 Formula One champion Jenson Button and Johnson has been fast enough; Rockenfeller put down a qualifying lap that was faster than every car in the GTE AM class by a full three seconds.

The Hendrick Motorsports crew won its class in the pit stop competition and finished fifth overall as the only team using a manual jack against teams exclusively using air jacks. Rick Hendrick said he could not be prouder of the showing his organization has made even before race day.

“When we said we’re gonna do it, I said, ‘Look, we can’t do this half-assed. I want to be as sharp as anybody out there,” Hendrick told AP. “I don’t want to be any less than any other team here. And just to see the reaction from the crowd, people are so excited about this car. My granddaughter has been sending me all these TikTok things that fans are making about NASCAR being at Le Mans.”

This isn’t NASCAR’s first attempt to run Le Mans. The late France Sr. brokered a deal in 1976, as America celebrated its bicentennial, to bring two cars to compete in the Grand International class and NASCAR selected the teams. Herschel McGriff and his son, Doug, drove a Wedge-powered, Olympia Beer-sponsored Dodge Charger, and Junie Donlavey piloted a Ford Torino shared by Richard Brooks and Dick Hutcherson.

Neither car came close to finishing the race. McGriff, now 95 and inducted into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame in January, is in Le Mans as France’s guest, clad head-to-toe in the noticeable Garage 56 uniforms.

“I threw a lot of hints that I would like to come. And I’ve been treated as royalty,” McGriff said. “This is unbelievable to me. I recognize nothing but I’m anxious to see everything. I’ve been watching and seeing pictures and I can certainly see the fans love their NASCAR.”

The goal is to finish the full race Sunday and, just maybe, beat cars from other classes. Should they pull off the feat, the driver trio wants its own podium celebration.

“I think people will talk about this car for a long, long time,” said Rockenfeller, who along with sports car driver Jordan Taylor did much of the development alongside crew chief Chad Knaus and Greg Ives, a former crew chief who stepped into a projects role at Hendrick this year.

“When we started with the Cup car, we felt already there was so much potential,” Rockenfeller said. “And then we tweaked it. And we go faster, and faster, at Le Mans on the SIM. But you never know until you hit the real track, and to be actually faster than the SIM. Everybody in the paddock, all the drivers, they come up and they are, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’ and they were impressed by the pit stops. We’ve overachieved, almost, and now of course the goal is to run for 24 hours.”

The car completed a full 24-hour test at Sebring, Florida, earlier this year, Knaus said, and is capable of finishing the race. Button believes NASCAR will leave a lasting impression no matter what happens.

“If you haven’t seen this car live yet, it’s an absolute beast,” Button said. “When you see and hear it go by, it just puts a massive smile on your face.”

For Hendrick, the effort is the first in his newfound embrace of racing outside NASCAR, the stock car series founded long ago in the American South. Aside from the Le Mans project, he will own the Indy car that Kyle Larson drives for Arrow McLaren in next year’s Indianapolis 500 and it will be sponsored by his automotive company.

“If you’d have told me I’d be racing at Le Mans and Indianapolis within the same year, I’d never have believed you,” Hendrick told AP. “But we’re doing both and we’re going to do it right.”

Le Mans 24 Hour Race - Car Parade
Fans gather around the NASCAR Next Gen Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 that is the Garage 56 entry for the 100th 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe (Chris Graythen/Getty Images).

General Motors is celebrating the achievement with a 2024 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Garage 56 Edition and only 56 will be available to collectors later this year.

“Even though Chevrolet has been racing since its inception in 1911, we’ve never done anything quite like Garage 56,” said GM President Mark Reuss. “A NASCAR stock car running at Le Mans is something fans doubted they would see again.”

The race hasn’t even started yet, but Hendrick has enjoyed it so much that he doesn’t want the project to end.

“It’s like a shame to go through all this and do all this, and then Sunday it’s done,” Hendrick said. “It’s just really special to be here.”