Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor Serving as Coach for the Garage 56 Le Mans Team

Corvette Racing veteran Jordan Taylor may be listed as “coach” of the new Garage 56 partnership, but he says a more appropriate title might be “consultant.”

Garage 56 will be competing with a NASCAR Cup Series-based Camaro in the Innovative Car class for the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

Taylor – who usually drives the No. 3 Corvette C8.R GTD in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – is listed as a backup driver for Garage 56, whose lineup looks like a Who’s Who in the racing world – with NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson, F1 champion Jenson Button, and 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller on the team.

“My title is ‘driver coach,’ but I think that’s more of a joke than anything with the level of drivers that we have,” Taylor tells Speed Sport. “I think a more accurate title would just be a consultant, with a lot of experience on the sports car side – the Le Mans side, specifically, having raced there so many years.”

The Garage 56 partnership includes NASCAR, IMSA, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet and Goodyear.

Since the Hendrick team has no experience at Le Mans, “I can give them some feedback and things to look out for,” Taylor says, “whether it’s about rules or protocols of a secondary nature that are very easy to overlook when you’re not expecting them. It’s exciting being involved with a team like Hendrick and continuing my association with GM and Chevrolet.”

Taylor says he contacted Hendrick Motorsports Vice President of Competition Chad Knaus once he heard rumors about Garage 56 and has been kept in the loop ever since.

“It’s just a cool project to be involved with,” Taylor says. “These days, most of our racecars are homologated to the dot, and this is a program that’s a little bit more old school where the driver gets out and says, ‘This could be better’ or ‘This could be improved,’ and the team can go back to the shop and develop new parts or new pieces by the time you return for your next test. That’s how you develop a racecar.”

Taylor says it’s “cool” to provide such feedback, calling it “rewarding when you see some of your feedback going into work and production.”

For example, at Daytona, Taylor offered feedback on the dash and the layout of the steering wheel and “then at the next Sebring test, it was all there on the car,” he says.

“It’s nice to see that progress happening so fast,” says Taylor, adding that the Garage 56 Camaro will no doubt impress international spectators with the performance and roar of its NASCAR-derived V8 engine. “I think it’s going to open a lot of people’s eyes at Le Mans and around the world when they see this car in person,” he says.

Taylor believes the Garage 56 team will enjoy the 100th anniversary of the first Le Mans race in June, recalling his first time there as an “eye opening” experience that proved “hard to take everything in, whether it’s scrutineering or the drivers’ parade or all the national anthems going on.”

He believes the 2023 race will be “super memorable” for the team, calling it “a project they were all excited about.”

“They’re coming back to competition in such a cool way,” Taylor says, “and I know they are all looking forward to it. It’s going to be everyone’s first 24-hour race, so I think it’s going to be an amazing experience for everybody.”

Though Taylor won’t be competing at Le Mans himself for the ninth time as a driver, he says he has learned a lot seeing how the Hendrick team runs.

“Working with Chad and Jimmie, seeing their relationship, and (crew chief) Greg Ives had a lot of success in NASCAR. Seeing how the team operates – how they run through a test, how they do pre- and post-event briefings – there are so many little things I can take away and take back to my regular side of racing.”

He has enjoyed learning a new driving style from the different drivers – “how they give feedback, what they focus on with their feedback, different driving style traits that each guy can bring from their different walks of life. It’s been a super interesting process so far. I’m really happy and excited to have been a part of it, and looking forward to seeing how it progresses through June.”

Source:
Speed Sport

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