Does anyone remember the International Race Of Champions racing series from back in the day? The series that featured drivers from NASCAR, USAC and F1 doing battle in third gen Camaros on high speed ovals every Saturday? Have you ever wondered what happened to those high octane F-Bodies?

We have good news and bad news. The bad news is 90% of those cars were stripped for parts. The cars used in the IROC series were NASCAR Grand National chassis with sheet metal bodies designed to resemble third generation Camaros. 90% of these cars had the sheet metal scrapped and the chassis sold for parts, or its chassis was reused as a Dodge Daytona after Dodge became the series title sponsor in 1990.

The good news, however, is that the intimidator himself, Dale Earnhardt, saved one of his cars from the series and it can be found resting at Richard Childress racing in North Carolina.

Aside from the shape of the sheet metal, the IROC race cars have nothing else in common with the production Camaro IROC-Z28. In its 1985 debut, the Camaro IROC-Z was powered by a tuned port injection 305 cubic inch (later 350) motor tied to either a T5 manual or 700R4 automatic transmission.

The IROC race car had an all aluminum forged internal Katech Chevy 350 small block, overbored .040 to 358 cubes producing 470 horsepower. The motor was tied to a Richmond Super T-10 four speed manual transmission. The chassis used were tube chassis left over from when NASCAR was the Grand National Series. The roof skin, front windshield, bumper skin and the door skins are actually authentic pieces that have been equipped on the IROC race cars.
Dale Earnhardt’s former IROC racer is most likely the only one left in existence.