The Gen6 specification Camaro has been purchased by an Aussie collector and will be raced by Richard White in this year’s Stock Cars Australia National Series.
SCA promotes a five-round series spread across AASA and Victorian Motor Racing Championship events featuring ex-NASCAR, AUSCAR, Sportsman, GTA and OzTruck machinery.
White and his team are regulars with a pair of Chevrolets – a Lumina dressed as Dale Earnhardt’s #3 Goodwrench car and a Monte Carlo that pays tribute to Earnhardt Jr’s #8 Budweiser machine.
The latest car to come under the care of White’s eponymous team has also been finished in Earnhardt colours, although he is still trying to track down its provenance.
“We don’t know the full history at the moment, but it is an ex-Hendrick Motorsports Gen6 Camaro, 2019 body,” White told Speedcafe.
“It’s definitely ex-Cup. Hendrick grinds all the chassis numbers off, which makes it hard, but we’re trying to find out [more information].
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“It’s been prepared by Rhine Enterprises in Denver, North Carolina.
“Bill Rhine is a well-known restorer of vintage stock cars and does a lot of work with building cars like ride cars and show cars for NASCAR and Toyota.”
The Camaro arrived in Australia in February and was recently taken to Winton for its maiden local laps following a shakedown on a chassis dyno.
Although cagey on exact numbers put out by the Richard Childress Racing V8 under the ‘hood’, White said it’s good for more than 800 horsepower.
“It’s more power than what I’ve had in my previous cars,” he said. “We didn’t have time to do any setup work on the car, but it has a lot of promise.”
The most eye-catching element of the car is the livery, which White said is a tribute to both generations of Earnhardt.
“The front half of the car is Dale Sr’s sort of forgotten 1981 livery and the back half is based on the 2010 Daytona Nationwide win that Jr had,” he said.
Earnhardt Jr’s Daytona victory came in a throwback scheme featuring the Wrangler colours made famous by his father.
White, 44, is a mechanical engineer with a farming operation outside Ballarat, making the workwear brand somewhat fitting.
He is an unashamed Earnhardt fan whose interest in NASCAR stems from childhood.
“Me and a mate were probably a bit of an odd pair of Aussie kids in the ‘90s following NASCAR,” he said.
White had a brief involvement with the Australian NASCAR scene during his teenage years, as well as banking work experience with Supercars squads including Perkins Engineering.
Although focusing his career away from motorsport after a brief spell as an engineer in the Development Series, a love for NASCAR brought him back in as a competitor.
“It was really during COVID that I sort of got a bit more time at home, watching a few vintage NASCAR videos on YouTube,” he said.
“I found out the Stock Car [Australia] Series existed and just started tracking down some cars.
“I’m definitely an Earnhardt man and it just worked out that when I bought the Lumina out of Tasmania, it had already been done in the Goodwrench livery.”
White’s team will run his Lumina for series organiser Zac O’Hara at the opening round as part of the AASA National Series at Sydney Motorsport Park on April 25-26.
The Monte Carlo, which was originally raced by Geoff Bodine in 1999/2000, is up for sale.
Now over 25 years since the last Aussie NASCAR/AUSCAR event on the Calder Park Thunderdome, nostalgia is driving car owners to get local machines back on track.
That and new imports such as White’s Camaro have organisers hopeful of attracting 15-20 cars for this year’s opening round, pending the developing fuel crisis.
White is meanwhile pleased to see a growing appreciation for NASCAR in Australia that has largely stemmed from Shane van Gisbergen’s move from Supercars.
He hopes his team can play a role in helping Aussies get to the United States.
“I’d like to create a development path for young engineers and mechanics who want to get some experience on these cars before they go to the States,” he said.
“Whether it’s young Supercar engineers or Super2 engineers who have got their eye on doing something similar to what James Small or Andrew Dickeson have done.”
Small and Dickeson both cut their teeth in Supercars before relocating to the US and currently work as Cup Series crew chiefs for Joe Gibbs Racing and Kaulig Racing respectively.
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