The 1998

Petit Le Mans The Petit Le Mans (French for ''little Le Mans'') is a sports car endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, USA. It uses the rules established for the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which ...

was the seventh race for the

1998 IMSA GT Championship season The 1998 Professional SportsCar Racing Championship season was the 28th season of the IMSA GT Championship, the final one of the original IMSA. It consisted of an open-cockpit World Sports Car (WSC) class of prototypes and Grand Tourer-style rac ...

, then known as the Professional SportsCar Racing series. It also served as a prelude to the first American Le Mans Series race held at Sebring in 1999.

Don Panoz Donald Panoz ( or ; February 13, 1935 – September 11, 2018) was an American entrepreneur who founded various pharmaceutical companies. Early life Panoz was an Italian-American. His father, Eugene Panunzio, immigrated to the United States f ...

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The American Le Mans' hea ...

was developed with the backing of the

Automobile Club de l'Ouest The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (English: Automobile Club of the West), sometimes abbreviated to ACO, is the largest automotive group in France. It was founded in 1906 by car building and racing enthusiasts, and is most famous for being the organ ...

(ACO), the ruling body of the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...

. It took place on October 11, 1998.

Development

Following the demise of the

World Sportscar Championship The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992. The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and No ...

in 1992, sportscar racing was left without a major worldwide series in which to compete. The

remained a remnant, still competed by a large number of sportscars, but mostly on a single race basis. Various sportscar leagues had sprung up since the WSC's demise, including the

International Motor Sports Association The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...

's replacement for their Camel GTP series, the Prototype SportsCar Racing series. In Europe, two series were also developed, the

FIA Sportscar Championship The FIA Sportscar Championship was a sports car racing series created by John Mangoletsi and was eventually taken control of by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It was a series similar to the FIA GT Championship, concentrating ...

and the

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

, although they were not combined like IMSA's series. The

, wanting to create a new worldwide series, made an agreement with

, owner of the

Road Atlanta Road Atlanta (known for sponsorship reasons as Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta) is a road course located just north of Braselton, Georgia, United States. The facility is utilized for a wide variety of events, including professional and amateur spo ...

racing course. The ACO would agree to lend the Le Mans name out to Panoz for the creation of an event called the

(French for ''little Le Mans''). The race would be similar to the 12 Hours of Sebring, in that it did not run a full 24 hours like Le Mans. Instead, the race would be 10 hours or , whichever came first. The series would become an experiment for the ACO, in which if enough teams showed interest in Petit Le Mans, the ACO would look into developing a series around the same formula. In order to help drive interest, the ACO promised that the winners of Petit Le Mans would earn automatic invitations to the 24 Hours of Le Mans without having to apply or earn favor with the ACO. This custom continues to be utilized in the Petit Le Mans, despite American Le Mans Series champions also receiving invites. IMSA, which normally ran at Road Atlanta during their seasons, agreed to allow a joint race for their series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans competitors. However, each series ran slightly different formulas for their competitors, thus forcing the organizers to create seven different classes. LMP1, LMGT1, and LMGT2 for the ACO compliant cars, and WSC, GT1, GT2, and GT3 for IMSA's competitors. Even though both organizers used the GT1 and GT2 names the classes were not actually the same, which is why the ACO classes are preceded by LM.

Official results

Class winners in bold.

Statistics

* Pole Position - Allan McNish (#26 Porsche AG) - 1:13.754 * Fastest Lap - Allan McNish (#26 Porsche AG) - 1:15.239 * Average Speed - 164.62 km/h

Post-Race

With a total of 31 entrants, including a large number of European teams, the ACO considered the race a success. The only downside was that BMW, who had initially entered their BMW V12 LMs, did not show up for the race. However, the ACO and

pushed ahead with their plans and announced the

for 1999. IMSA, whose own racing series was faltering, decided to take instead take over as sanctioning body for the new American Le Mans Series. The #26

Porsche 911 GT1 The Porsche 911 GT1 is a car designed and developed by German automobile manufacturer Porsche AG to compete in the GT1 class of sportscar racing, which also required a street-legal version for homologation (motorsport), homologation purposes. The ...

, which had won the pole position for the race, did not finish the race; the car, piloted by

Yannick Dalmas Yannick Dalmas (born 28 July 1961) is a former racing driver from France. He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times (in 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1999), each with different teams. Prior to this, he participated in 49 Formula One Grands Prix, debuting ...

, infamously flipped in a blowover between turns 8 and 9. This incident, as well as similar blowover incidents to the BMW V12 LM during the 2000 Petit Le Mans and the

Mercedes-Benz CLR The Mercedes-Benz CLR was a set of racing cars developed for Mercedes-Benz through a collaboration with in-house tuning division Mercedes-AMG and motorsports specialists HWA GmbH. Designed to meet Le Mans Grand Touring Prototype (LMGTP) regu ...

during the

1999 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 67th 24 Hours of Le Mans, and took place on 12 and 13 June 1999. The race had a large number of entries in the fastest Le Mans Prototype classes, with Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lola Cars, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Pan ...

, resulted in new protocols in 2003 that increased the critical take-off speed and reduced the chance of blow-overs. The ACO would repeat later this kind of one-off experimental race in preparation for new series, with the 1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000km, the 2000 Race of a Thousand Years, the 2003 1000km of Le Mans and the 2009 1000 km of Okayama.

References

External links

1998 Petit Le Mans results (WSRP)

1998 Petit Le Mans Photos and News
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Petit Le Mans