One shot at glor

With just a single season to show its worth before sweeping regulation changes come along in 2021, Chevrolet’s new Camaro ZL1 LE NASCAR Cup racer is under pressure to perform. But with a fresh aero approach and development strategy there’s a real chance that this Chevy will take the fight to Toyota in 2020

- LAWRENCE BUTCHER

In 2020, Chevrolet will be the only manufacturer introducing a revised body into NASCAR’s Cup series, with the arrival of the Camaro ZL1 LE. Due to the series gaining an all-new regulations package for 2021 (which is detailed on page 24), this car will only run for a single season.

In 2018, Chevrolet brought the Camaro body style to the top level of stock car racing, replacing the short-lived SS (the US market version of the Holden Commodore) which in turn had usurped the long-serving Impala. Now there’s a new version for 2020.

Single season car

That a manufacturer would dedicate development resources to such a single-year project may seem surprising, but as Patrick Suhy, manager of GM’s NASCAR competition group explains, there was good reason for the commitment. ‘When we did the 2018 car, it was done out of necessity, because the SS was going out of production, so to be compliant with NASCAR’s rules on having a relevant production model, we had to pick something. The Camaro was the natural successor.’

In 2017, when the ’18 Camaro was being developed, the ZL1 was the highest performance model in the Camaro range, making it the logical base for a Cup design. However, the range-topping ZL1 LE would follow in early 2019 and, from a branding perspective, GM wanted its top models represented on the race track. ‘It [the ZL1LE] is a true track car with much greater aerodynamic performance than the ZL1,’ says Suhy. ‘Our partners in marketing asked us what it would take to bring the car in.’