NASCAR’s Garage 56 entry already a winner at Le Mans

Fx9dzxfWAAcvLwG — The pit crew of the No. 24 NASCAR Next Gen Chevrolet ZL1 performs a pit stop during the pit stop challenge before the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe. (Getty Images)

Despite the NASCAR Garage 56 car not competing for the win during the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend, the Garage 56 pit crew had their moment to shine on Tuesday afternoon.

To the delight of the French crowd, the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet crew won the Pit Stop Challenge, bettering 14 GTE entries they were competing against.

“These guys have been training hard,” said Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Competition and manager of the Garage56 project. “What’s amazing is everybody’s been doing this [pit stop preparation] along with what they’re trying to do as a real job seven days a week.

“They’ve been training really hard as well as pitting Xfinity cars and NASCAR Cup Series cars and doing this, which is significantly different choreography on significantly different race cars. They’ve done a really good job and I’m super proud of them.’’

A lot of the Garage 56 pit crew are first and second-year members of the championship Hendrick Motorsports team, according to Knaus. A few others have more experience and all of them have been training specifically for Le Mans, working all the tests leading up to this weekend’s race.

“We picked all these guys and have been training with them for eight months. They’ve been working hard on this.’’

The crew – which included Evan Kureczka, Dawson Backus, Mike Moss, Cody French, Jarius Morehead, Donavan Williams and Jamie Frady – got a chance to set the winning tone for the team.

“It’s amazing, just to think about all the hard work we’ve done and the guys in the shop, they started even way before us putting this project in place the last nine months,” Williams said after the champagne-drenched victory celebration.

“It’s just a special moment to be able to represent Hendrick Motorsports, represent our families, ourselves and the organization, America and NASCAR as a whole.”

The first two official practice sessions in advance of the June 10-11 “Centenary” 24 Hours of Le Mans at the 8.467-mile course will be Wednesday with qualifying at 7 p.m. French local time.