Story and photos by Tim Adams
Petit Le Mans. One of the most anticipated sportscar races every year. The 10-hour race is a fitting finally to the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship. The race is held at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA. Road Atlanta is a 2.54-mile road course that must be seen in person to really capture the essence of the track. The elevation changes throughout the track are amazing. The most famous part of the track is from turn 3 to turn 5. As the cars hit turn 3 most end up on two wheels as they pound over the curbing, then the dive down thru the esses, to turn 4 and 5. Turn 12 is a thundering right hander that features a huge elevation drop. Put four classes of sportscars together and let the excitement begin.
This was the 20th Petit Le Mans contested. The race was first held in 1998 as part of the IMSA season. It was the brainchild of Don Panoz who owned Road Atlanta at the time. It was a huge success and led to the birth of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). After the ALMS and Grand-Am merged at the end of the 2013 season, it has been the climatic race for sportscars in the US. The prestige of the event routinely draws entries from the Europe to test their mettle against their US counterparts. Up until 2013 the race was 10 hours, or 1000 miles, whichever came first. Starting in 2014 the race has been contested at the fixed time of 10 hours. Audi has dominated the race winning 9 times overall.
Coming into the race all the title contenders in the three of the four classes had their championships very close to being locked up. Everything went according to plan and all four won their respective season championships. Wayne Taylor Racing’s Cadillac DPi dominated in Prototype all season and won the overall title very easily. Engine problems would force them out of Petit very early ending their season. Prototype Challenge was decided before the race was even started. Performance Tech Motorsports #38 dominated all season and had the title already wrapped up. The team would suffer from a late race incident and did not fare well in the race. The GTLM class was won by the fan favorite Corvette Racing and the team car #4. They would match their race number and finish forth in GTLM at Petit. In GTD despite some early problems with contact with another racer, Scuderia Corsa wrapped up the season title in their Ferrari 488 GT3. The early contact dropped them all the way to 9th in class at Petit.
The news coming into Petit was dominated by the Prototype class. The worst kept secret in the paddock was that Penske was coming back to sportscar racing. Absent from sportscar racing since the glory days of the ALMS, Rodger Penske does not enter any series without expecting to win. Penske will field a pair of Acura ARX-05 DPi entries. To get back into the swing of things Penske decided to enter a one-off Oreca P2 car at Petit. It promptly qualified on the pole! Not bad after a nine-year absence. Driving for Penske at Petit were Juan Pablo Montoya, Helio Castroneves, and Simon Pagenaud. Despite missing nine years the team finished on the podium, 3rd in prototype.
The other big news was the exit of the two Mazda DPi cars midseason. They were really having a lot of problems with the car. The exit was great news however, taking over the Mazda program is Joest Racing. For the casual racing fan this is why it is was such an exciting announcement, Joest Racing ran the former Audi factory team. Joest’s track record, 15 overall wins at Le Mans, two Daytona 24’s, 10 12 Hours of Sebring, and 6 Petit Le Mans!
There will be four factories involved in 2018 in prototype (DPi), Honda-Acura, Cadillac, Mazda, and Nissan. They will be joined by privateers in Oreca, and Ligier P2 cars. With the World Endurance Championship (WEC) prototype class in complete disarray, IMSA will be the place to watch for top level sportscar racing in 2018. The WEC does not want any factory involvement in P2, while IMSA is welcoming it. It would be a great benefit in this writer’s opinion if the WEC, Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), and IMSA would get together and come up with one set of prototype rules so teams can race anywhere in the world.
As it stands now, the teams racing P2 cars in IMSA would be able to race at Le Mans if invited. The factory based DPi cars cannot race at Le Mans.
In 2018 there will be three classes of cars racing for the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, Prototype, GTLM, and GTD. The open top Prototype Challenge (PC) cars have been retired. While never really paying a lot of attention to PC since it was spec class, the open top cars were always a favorite to photograph. Being able to see the driver at work just added another dimension.
The 20th annual Petit Le Mans was crazy race. The racers could not stop running into each other or running into things. There were over a dozen cautions, with almost three of the ten hours spent behind the pace car. Next up to kick off the 2018 season, is the Rolex 24 at Daytona, January 25th-28th.
