Third Generation IROC Cars: IROC-Z Camaros and Dodge Equivalents (1983-1995)

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Ray Evernham's IROC Racecar Collection: Driven By The Most Legendary Names In Racing

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What happens here

After a three-year hiatus following a major wreck in 1980, IROC resumed racing with a third generation of vehicles, primarily IROC-Z Camaros, from 1983 to 1995. These cars featured full Banjo Matthews chassis and were so influential they even inspired the production IROC-Z street car. Ray Evernham played a direct role in building these cars during his time at IROC, including a specific model driven by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt. The video further explains how these IROC Camaros were later re-bodied to become Dodge Daytonas and subsequently Dodge Avengers, like the red and white number 12 car showcased, which served as a crucial practice vehicle and was driven by virtually every IROC legend. The engines for these Dodge-bodied cars, specifically 340 cubic inch (5.6L) V8s producing around 550 horsepower, were developed and built in-house by IROC's own engine shop in collaboration with Flowtech in New Jersey, signifying a move towards manufacturer-specific engine development within the series.

Goal: Understand the fully developed IROC-Z race cars and their re-bodied iterations.

Tools and materials

Banjo Matthews chassis Banjo Matthews

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life and its High Rock life this is an Avenger but it actually started life as one of the Camaros that I was involved in building in 1983 and 1984 so after a big wreck at Atlanta in 1980 and you can see you know they just tore up a bunch of cars Atlanta 1980. IROC took a a three-year Hiatus and they brought it back we went down to banjo Matthews again and had him build these cars which started life as the what I call the generation three Iraq Camaros they were full banjo Matthews chassis this is where the IROC Z and all that came from now the hard part about finding an IROC Z is the only one that I know that exists in original condition is the one that Dale Earnhardt had and that's one of the cards that I built the IROC Camaros then became the Dodge daytonas which became the Dodge Avenger so there's Avengers around but they're really the Camaros that had the bodies changed on them and this car has an incredible list of drivers it was one of the practice cars just about everybody that ran IROC from 84 on up to uh when they went to the Firebirds had driven you know or or at this car at one point these cars were always interesting to me because they had and at this time there was no Dodge engines in cop you know you know again I don't know a lot about what they used their cup cars for Dodge I think they were kind of based on what they were running in the truck series at that time but you know what's neat about this is IROC the guys at Iraq evolved into their own engine shop so I believe that these were built up these engines were built by the guys at Iraq in partnership with a local racer in New Jersey named John Blewett oh well I think his company was called flotec at that time they worked together as a partnership to build these engines so you know again pretty neat deal uh didn't make a lot of horsepower uh I I I'm guessing you know 550 or or so but still cars were capable of running about mid 180s at Daytona Talladega did these things have anything to do with dodges increased interest in getting back into that which eventually led to you being the the Dodge guy ah you know I can't answer that because I don't know what happened behind the scenes but you know you know Dodge Iraq they did the truck series and then came into the Cup Series so I'm sure that they saw some increase in sales for the Iraq program which so did Chevrolet so did Pontiac so did Porsche most of the manufacturers that have been with IROC have seen an increase in sales what's really cool…

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