Tomorrow morning at 11:15, 30 of the worlds most exotic race cars will start into a 1000 mile race at a track called Road Atlanta, about an hour outside the city.  They will make right turns, drive up and over a hill, and even pass one another from time to time.  This is not your everyday weekend drive.  The event is called the Petit Le Mans, named for the famous 24 hour sports car race held each year in France.  It will be broadcast start to finish on Speed TV, so it’s there for you to check out during commercials and Kenny Chesney songs in college football games.  So now, your Petit Le Mans preview.

The Race

First, a little background.  The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the premiere endurance sports car event.  Others you may be familiar with include the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring.  In any of these races, a team of 2-4 drivers will rotate the driving duties, generally trading out each time the car needs fuel, although a double stint is common in the early stages of a long race, to save time on driver changes.  The events are run rain or shine, usually into the night, and the winning team is that which completes the most distance over the course of the race.

During tomorrow’s race, there will be 3 categories on the track at once- races within a race.  I’ll introduce you to competitors in each category shortly, but you will see cars in P1 (P for Prototype), P2, and GT2 (GT for Grand Touring).  The P1 class features almost unrestricted, ultra high tech cars that do not resemble anything you’ll see on a road.  P2 is much the same, but places limits on technology and power, meant to keep costs relatively low.  GT2 are cars that do resemble production exotics- Porsche, Jaguar, Corvette, and Ferrari are among the entries tomorrow.  While there is an overall winner, P2 and GT2 teams are only concerned with their place against class competitors.

The Petit Le Mans is scheduled to be run 1000 miles or 10 hours, whichever comes first.  In eleven years, the time limit has not had be used, each race has gone the full 1000 miles.

The Track

The Race is held at Road Atlanta, a 2.54 mile track with 12 turns and substantial elevation change.

The elevation change, however, can make things exciting if there’s a design flaw in the car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6gzpwmito

The Competitors

P1

P1 is the premiere class in the American LeMans Series (ALMS) and in international competition.  There are eleven cars in the class this weekend, including a major influx of European competitors, some of which I’m not even familiar with.  But here are your contenders, or at least the guys most likely to be on TV if you stop in:

Peugeot 908 HDi. Peugeot won the 24 Hours of LeMans this year, after many years of Audi dominance.  They were the fastest car at Petit LeMans for much of last years race but failed in the end.  Pug has two cars entered tomorrow, #07 and #08.

Audi R15 TDI. Audi has been the dominant name in sports car racing for the better part of a decade.  They have won every Petit Le Mans since 2000.  They also won the 12 Hours of Sebring this year, and have only been beaten there once since 2000 as well. Audi also has 2 cars racing tomorrow, #1 and #2.

Acura ARX-02a. The underdog that has at least a long shot.  Two teams run the Acuras, and are dominating the P1 season standings since Peugeot and Audi are only running the main races in the States this year. A horrible crash in practice has left the Patron Highcroft team (green)  scrambling, which will set them back on Saturday.  They are a single car team, wearing #9.  The de Ferran Motorsports team (black), is trailing the Patron team in the hunt for the season championship, and will hope to make up ground this weekend.

P2

P2 is a less popular class, with only 5 cars in tomorrows race.  Here are a couple you may hear a little about:

Lowe’s-Fernandez Racing- Driving another, less powerful Acura, Lowe’s Fernandez has dominated P2 this year, winning all but one race, including the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Dyson Racing Mazda. Dyson Racing has been around for most of forever, but this year started from scratch with a brand new car.  They’ve picked up just the one win, but will hope to be competitive tomorrow anyway.

GT2

There used to be a GT1, but as it got more expensive, teams dropped out left and right.  Corvette had dominated anyway, and they finally decided to move down to the less expensive GT2 class, leaving nobody left, so no GT1 this year.  There are 14 cars in GT2 tomorrow.  Next year they’re restructuring all the classes, but you don’t care about that right now.  Back to pictures of cars!

Corvette- And here they are.  Virtually unbeatable in GT1 for ages, now trying to set that bar again in GT2.  Lots more competition here though.

Porsche 911- Long the world’s best production based sports car racer.  Has been trading wins with Ferrari at all the major races in the last few years.  This one belongs to Flying Lizard, probably the top Porsche team right now, but there are numerous teams running the cars.  4 are entered tomorrow.

Ferrari 430 GT- Amazingly, only one is entered tomorrow, that of Risi Competizione.  These guys are endurance race machines, and will be a factor all day long.

BMW E92 M3- Another factory team, the BMWs are brand new this year, and do have one race win to their credit.  They struggled with reliability problems at Sebring, but the camera loves them.

Jaguar. Will not win.  Will not be competitive.  This is the debut event for the Jag, who are readying for a full season next year.  But the car is gorgeous, and will be talked about for as long as it lasts.

There are numerous other cars in each class, and in races like this, almost anybody can win.  There’s a Porsche protoytpe in P2, a Ford GT, a Viper, and a Panoz is GT2, and a host of goofy stuff in P1 that you’ll see from time to time.

If you’re interested in more about the race, check out any of these fine purveyors of motorsports information, several of whom I have gleefully stolen photos from today:

Speed Sport Life

Jalopnik

American Le Mans Series

Radio Le Mans

Paddock Talk- they have an epic picture of the crashed Acura here.  The driver, Scott Sharp, walked away and will race tomorrow if they get the car together (they are essentially building a new one). I am not aware of any video footage.

Tags: alms, i love the smell of race fuel in the morning, lowercase, motorsports on the fringe, nascar sucks, petit le mans, sports car racing
Categories: Domestics

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Domestics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.