The 2009 Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda6 was the twelfth running of the

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 ...

and the ninth round of the

2009 American Le Mans Series season The 2009 American Le Mans Series season was the 39th season for the IMSA GT Championship, with it being the eleventh season with the American Le Mans Series moniker. It began on March 21, 2009, and ended on October 10, 2009 after ten events. The ...

. It took place at 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 ...

circuit in

Braselton, Georgia Braselton ( ) is a town in Barrow, Gwinnett, Hall, and Jackson counties in the U.S. state of Georgia, approximately northeast of Atlanta. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 7,511, and in 2018 the estimated population was 11,6 ...

, on September 26, 2009. Originally scheduled to run for a distance of or a time of ten hours, the race was stopped after four hours due to heavy rains. The race was not restarted and the results were determined from the final lap prior to the stoppage. When race officials decided to not restart the event

Nicolas Minassian Nicolas Minassian (born 28 February 1973) is a French professional racing driver of Armenian descent. After finishing 2nd place in the 1993 Formula Renault Eurocup, Marseille-born Minassian graduated to the French Formula Three Championship whe ...

and Stéphane Sarrazin of the #08

Peugeot Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis. The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...

were declared the winners, leading their team car #07.

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. Th ...

, who had won this race every year since

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

, finished in third and fourth places. This race was the first time Audi lost at Petit Le Mans since its first run since 2000. This was also the first time that neither of the

Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...

marques (Audi and Porsche) won (or finished in the top two, in all cases) its classes. In the LMP2 category

Dyson Racing Team Dyson Racing is a professional sports car racing team based in Poughkeepsie, New York in the United States. Founded by Rob Dyson in 1974, the team competed successfully in North American sports car racing series, including the IMSA GT Champions ...

won their second race of the season with the #20

Lola Lola may refer to: Places * Lolá, a or subdistrict of Panama * Lola Township, Cherokee County, Kansas, United States * Lola Prefecture, Guinea * Lola, Guinea, a town in Lola Prefecture * Lola Island, in the Solomon Islands People * Lola ...

Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...

Marino Franchitti Marino Alessandro Cesare Franchitti (born 7 July 1978) is a British racing driver, and the younger brother of Dario Franchitti. He has spent the majority of his career racing in sports cars and grand tourers, with a career highlight of winning t ...

Ben Devlin Ben Devlin is a British television executive producer. After periods working in journalism including a stint at British newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph'', he entered television broadcasting and worked for the BBC, Rapido TV, Clive James's Watc ...

, and

Butch Leitzinger Robert Franklin "Butch" Leitzinger (born February 28, 1969) is an American professional racing driver. He is best known as an ALMS driver with Dyson Racing, but he has also driven for a variety of other teams and race series. He won the IMSA Pro W ...

ranking 13th overall and 29 laps ahead of their nearest class competitor. The GT2 category was won by

Risi Competizione Risi Competizione is an Italo-American auto racing Ferrari factory-backed team formed by Giuseppe Risi in 1997. Initially, the team had a partnership with Doyle Racing using the name Doyle-Risi Racing, but soon Giuseppe Risi took full control of t ...

Ferrari leading the

Rahal Letterman Racing Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing is an auto racing team that has participated in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IndyCar Series. Headquartered in Brownsburg, Indiana and Hilliard, Ohio, it is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 win ...

BMW and Farnbacher-Loles Porsche on the podium. During Thursday practice on September 24, which took place in dry, sunny conditions,

Scott Sharp Scott Sharp (born February 14, 1968) is an American professional racing driver in the United SportsCar Championship. He is the son of six-time SCCA champion Bob Sharp. Sharp is best known for his years as a competitor in the Indy Racing League. ...

had a violent crash in the

Acura ARX-02a The Acura ARX-02a was a Le Mans Prototype constructed by Acura for competition in the LMP1 category of the American Le Mans Series. It was Acura's second Le Mans Prototype, following their ARX-01 which competed in the LMP2 category. Development ...

exiting turn one after making contact with the Farnbacher-Loles Porsche entry, which was leaving the pits. Sharp's car turned on its left side, hit the fence, then barrel-rolled three-and-a-half times before landing right-side up. Sharp walked away from the incident. On Friday, September 25, at 9:30 AM

Eastern Daylight Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small p ...

, a new tub arrived from the Honda Performance Development Center in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

.– Scott Sharp Incredible Wreck Petit Le Mans 9-24-09
/ref> The

Highcroft Racing Highcroft Racing was an American auto racing team based out of Danbury, Connecticut and founded by driver Duncan Dayton in 1989. Initially founded for Dayton's involvement in historic motorsport, specifically the restoration and preparation of cla ...

team then spent the next 24 hours rebuilding the car, getting some assistance from archrival

de Ferran Motorsports De Ferran Motorsports was a motor racing team that competed in the American Le Mans Series. The team was owned by the 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner Gil de Ferran. On August 7, 2009 de Ferran announced that he would retire from racing at the end of ...

. The team only used 10 percent of the parts from the original car, and were forced to start the race from pit road.

Report

Qualifying

Qualifying result

Pole position winners in each class are marked in bold.

Race

Race result

Class winners are marked in bold. Cars failing to complete 70% of winner's distance are marked as Not Classified (NC).

References

{{Sportscar Race Report , Year_of_race = 2009 , Sportscar_Series = American Le Mans Series , Previous_race_in_season = 2009 Grand Prix of Mosport , Next_race_in_season =

2009 Monterey Sports Car Championships 2009 American Le Mans Series, Monterey Sports Car Championships Monterey Sports Car Championships 2009 in sports in California, Monterey Sports Car ...

Petit Le Mans