The South Hall Business Coalition talked economic impact and got a history lesson about Road Atlanta ahead of the 20th annual Petit Le Mans next month at their Tuesday morning breakfast meeting.
The meeting's program featured presentations from Road Atlanta President Geoff Lee, Senior Manager for Corporate Partnerships Derek Reyes, Senior Manager for Public Relations Kelsi Nilsson. And, guest speaker Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Driver Mark Pombo spoke on his career and memories of Road Atlanta.
This year is the 20th year for the Petit Le Mans race at the south Hall county racetrack. Lee told WDUN that people from 39 states and 19 counties visited Road Atlanta for the event in recent years.
"Just in Hall County alone, Road Atlanta was responsible for about 53 million dollars of economic impact [in a study done in 2005], which is hotels, restaurants, shops and stores taxes and so forth," Lee said. "That number has grown appreciatively now, but at that time we were second only to Lake Lanier as far as the amount of impact we had on the area."
Lee said after the meeting they also have events going on about 300 days out of the year.
"Some of those are smaller events that don't impact the community as much, as far as traffic flow and things like that. But what it does do - people staying hotels, people shopping in the stores," Lee said.
The 20th anniversary of the Petit Le Mans is set for October 4 through 7.
Thursday
April 25th, 2024
5:52AM
