The Petit Le Mans is the crown jewel of Road Atlanta and has been since it began in 1998.
This 10-hour endurance race is expected to bring in approximately 150,000 spectators from all over the world to the town of Braselton this Saturday at 11:10 a.m.
If all that wasn't enough, this year's Petit Le Mans will feature the past two IndyCar champions.
Simon Pagenaud comes to Braselton as the newly crowned IndyCar series champion just as Scott Dixon did a year ago. Dixon also returns this year and will be joined by other fellow IndyCar drivers Ryan Hunter-Reay, Spencer Pigot and Sebastian Bourdais.
The 2016 Verizon IndyCar series ran its final race on Sept. 18, at Sonoma Raceway in California, thus freeing up the schedules for these five drivers to compete in one of the most prestigious endurance races in the United States.
Drivers representing 21 different countries across five continents will be featured in the field of 38 cars. They range from Brazil to Portugal to South Africa to New Zealand and, of course, to the United States which will host 49 of the 114 Petit Le Mans drivers, the most of any nation.
In a race of this length, each car has three drivers assigned to it, hence 114 drivers for 38 cars, with each driver taken a turn during the race. How long a driver stays out is entirely up to the team. Generally, teams will log over 1,000 miles on this 2.54-mile-long road course (about 394 laps) before the 10 hours are up.
Only twice has the race been cut short due to excessive rain, and one of those times came last year when the race was called a little over two hours short of its goal. The constant downpour allowed Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet take the checkered flag in their Porsche 911, the first time a grand touring car was the overall champion.
The 38 cars in the Petit Le Mans are separated into four classes: Prototype (P), Prototype Challenge (PC), GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD). The Prototype class is considered the flagship class and it is typically the fastest car on the track, if it is not raining of course. While the body of a prototype car is designed purely for performance, the body of a grand touring car looks a lot like the street legal version, with a more powerful engine of course. You’ll recognize the Corvettes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Audis and BMWs in the GT Class a lot more than you’ll recognize the Corvettes, Mazdas and Hondas in the Prototypes.
The Petit Le Mans is essentially four races in one with each class of car declaring its own winner.
Saturday will also mark the end of the 2016 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season which began with the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona in January. The Petit Le Mans is the series finale so there is a lot at stake for drivers who take to this 46-year old track this weekend. For some, an entire season’s worth of work hinges on their performance at Road Atlanta.
Also worth noting is that the winner of the Petit Le Mans automatically qualifies for the most prestigious endurance race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.
