Chevrolet’s Camaro GT4.R Was Built To Win
Built by Pratt & Miller, run by Blackdog Speed Shop, and raced by Lawson Aschenbach, the Camaro GT4.R saw a number of wins.
Four entities came together in 2017 and made one of the most incredible Camaro race cars to grace a race track since Penske’s Trans Am Z/28. Those four entities are General Motors, Pratt and Miller, Blackdog Speed Shop and driver Lawson Aschenbach. The resulting GT4.R Camaro race car took the 2017 Pirelli World Championship, and made it say uncle.
In 2017, this combo won the manufacturers championship for General Motors, the team Championship for Blackdog, and the driver’s championship for Aschenbach. As we know from Bring-A-Trailer, their dominance extended into 2018 as well. 18 podiums finishes, and 6 race wins. All for GT4.R-002, the second GT4.R Camaro built.
Pratt & Miller prepared the car, who already had amassed a tremendous reputation of building Le Mans winning Corvettes. Their work on the Camaro involved getting it built to the limit of the rules in the global GT4 class. Power came from an LT1 V8 of the 6.2 liter variety. Aschenbach had an Xtrac 6-speed sequential manual transmission to use on track, and it proved to be a steady and reliable setup.
Aschenbach and Blackdog didn’t win the most races in 2017. In fact, they won just two. Team Panoz Racing had considerably more – six – but also had three retirements. Aschenbach’s lowest finishing position was 9th. In all Aschenbach scored 366 points in the 2017 season to Ian James‘ 303 for Team Panoz Racing. The manufacturers championship concluded the same way, with Blackdog amassing 120 points to 111 for Panoz.
But it’s the consistency that really impresses. Out of the 18 race season, Aschenbach had seven 2nd place finishes, three 3rd place finishes, twelve races on the podium, and every race finished in the top 10. Of course, “balance of performance” rules would soon push the team to add weight to the car, and make things more fair for other manufacturers to compete.
In 2019 the Pirelli World Challenged evolved into the Blancpain GT World Challenge America. While the cars were faster, GT4 cars like the Camaro were displaced, and Blackdog transitioned to GT4 through the SRO championship, campaigning something far different from the GM cars they were used to; the McLaren 570S.
Photos: Bring-A-Trailer
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