NASCAR's rare and redundant 1986 road course prototype surfaces ahead of auction next year - Reports

While modern-day NASCAR is synonymous with road and oval course racing on purpose-built tracks, NASCAR recently had its first race on a street course at the Chicago Street Race. However, this is not the first time that NASCAR has explored the idea of racing on street courses. A rare prototype from the old days when the sport considered street course racing has recently cropped up on the auction block.

A museum-worthy piece of NASCAR history from the 1980s comes in the form of a 1986 street-racing prototype, better known as the L-R (Left-Right) car. Signifying its intentions to turn right as well as left, the car was a product of the governing body looking to expand to street courses.

According to reports, the car draped in Pontiac Sunbird bodywork is supposed to go under the hammer in January 2024 via Mecum Auctions.

The governing body's leap of bringing cars onto city streets this year was separated by 36 years between the first road-course-only prototype being built.

NASCAR on NBC in a post on X (formerly Twitter), reminisced about the prototype in July 2022. The post read:

"The thought of @NASCAR racing on a street course in Chicago isn’t all that far fetched. In 1985 and 1986, the sanctioning body was building a prototype car for a possible Left-Right Series that would run on road and street courses. Among the test drivers? Dale Earnhardt."

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What was special about the NASCAR road-course prototype?

In the mid-1980s, NASCAR planned to jump on the road-racing bandwagon when a shift in focus towards street race events was brought by the IndyCar Series (known as CART at the time) and IMSA.

However, plans of the same were scrapped as the governing body decided against making a road-course-only series, focusing completely on the nationwide series. The sport continued to race with existing cars on permanent tracks such as Road America and Sonoma Raceway, without the need for a specific car designed to do the same.

The L-R car, as it was nicknamed, consisted of a bespoke chassis built by renowned constructor Banjo Matthews. With a wheelbase of 101 inches, the car was shorter than both the Cup and Xfinity Series cars of the same period.

Richard Childress Racing was then commissioned to complete the remaining car after the chassis had been built. Dale Earnhardt tested the newly built machine back in the day and gave his thoughts:

"It's a little front-heavy. The weight's not quite as good as it needs to be on the car. There's a lot of improvement to be made," Dale Earnhardt said via v8seuth.com.

The prototype racer was also significantly lighter than Cup Series cars of the generation, shaving around 600 lbs off the original plate racers. With the cars weighing 3000 lbs, 56% of that weight was swung over the front axle, thus creating issues while turning and the "front-heavy" feeling.

This relic of the past does remind us how far the sport has come, especially with the Next-Gen car, suited to both ovals as well as road courses.