Enlarge / The NASCAR/Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 leads a Ferrari 499P and assorted other racing cars at a test day at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. (credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

When Le Mans renovated its facilities in 2012, it built 55 pit garages for regular entrants in its annual 24-hour race and one more for entrants that want to demonstrate something new (there are actually a total of 62 entrants this year, but the special one is still called Garage 56).

These have included the pint-size Nissan Deltawing in 2012 and the closely related electric Nissan ZEOD RC in 2014. In 2016, quadruple amputee Frédéric Sausset did something neither of those two Nissans could manage, finishing the race in a specially modified prototype with the SRT 41 team, which repeated the feat with a pair of paraplegic drivers in 2021. And there have been attempts to run a hydrogen-powered racer from Garage 56. But this year’s entry is a bit different—and a little more familiar to Americans. It’s a NASCAR stock car.

It was certainly an incongruous sight as the NASCAR stock cars took to the track this weekend with the normal prototypes and GT cars at a test held before next weekend’s race at Le Mans. NASCAR stock cars are not exactly small, and they’re known for going fast in a straight line, not for their cornering prowess. There was even talk of trackside marshals waving a white flag—for a slow car ahead—to warn other competitors if they were going to encounter the stock car in one of the track’s more curvy sections.