HUGE IMSA Weekend Coming up: Motul Petit Le Mans At Road Atlanta

[Tbear]

Sportscar fans rejoice! Road Atlanta is about to host a big old bag full of fun...

Starting Wednesday, 10 October at Road Atlanta about 20 miles from my home in Georgia, teams in three classes will be preparing for the 10 hour slug fest to settle the Weathertech Driver, Team and Manufacturer Championships in all three classes, Prototype, GTE/LM and GTD to be held on Saturday, 13 October, 2018. All three classes have been hotly contested all year and each race has provided fans with some of the best and closest racing seen by this writer in a very long time. Going into Saturday the first three places of all three classes are separated by less than 20 points.

See Entry list HERE.

See Current Standings HERE.

Driver, Manufacturers and Team championship points are so tight as to make predictions foolish, I will note however:

Catherine Legge in the #86 Acura NSX is red hot after her drive at VIR last month where she rocketed to within 3 points of a 3 way tie for first in GTD. I can't make a prediction in this class, but I will admit to pulling for Legge.

After a first half of the season in which it looked like Chip Ganassie's Ford GTE/LM's would run away with all the titles, the Fords have cooled off quite a bit with the #67 car driven by Briscoe, Westbrook and Dixon having a less than stellar second half. Meanwhile, the North American BMW's have overcome a disastrous first half and are coming to Road Atlanta with a good bit of momentum. The Fords almost prevailed here last year, but came up short in the last 20 minutes. I would not be surprised by another BWM win this year, but, as an unabashed Ford Fan, I will be watching for a Ford championship on this track which values handling over sheer speed.

Handicapping the Prototype class is REALLY difficult after watching the close hard racing in this class all season long. Perhaps its nostalgia mixed with a good dollop of jingoism, but I really would love to see Team Penskie engineer a total victory here.

The action at Road Atlanta isn't limited to IMSA's premier classes however. The Continental Ti(y)re Sports Car championship will be held on Sunday, 21 October, 2018 giving us another weekend of GREAT racing.​

In the US these races are carried on Fox Sports, FS 1 & FS 2. Please check local listings for dates and times.

 
Have you been following IMSA sports car racing, either the Weathertech Championship series or the Continental Tire Championship series? Do you have a favorite car or driver? Let us know what you think about it in the comments section below!

 

[Stephen O'Sullivan]

For those outside the USA, free and uninterrupted coverage will be available from IMSA.TV

 

[Will Mazeo]

I wish IMSA would make a stream with only car sounds. I dont understand english well (especially the cool British accent) so that would be great and also watching racing series with multiple engines without narration is amazing.

 

[Jacco van der Zaag]

Gotta love this...

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/porsche-unveils-retro-liveries-for-petit-le-mans/

 

[Koen Verlinde]

To be honest, I have lost interest with Petit Le Mans for some years. I remember 908vsR10vsRS Spyder with GTE doorhandle to doorhandle.

GTD are just grid fillers imo.

 

[Terra21]

"Although the Fords prevailed here last year".. BMW won here last year the Fords were last

 

[Tbear]

"Although the Fords prevailed here last year".. BMW won here last year the Fords were last

Correct ... I forgot ... Fords were doing well until the last 20 minutes and then had problems ... my mistake. I have made the necessary edit. Thank you very much.

T

 

[dhmotor]

To be honest, I have lost interest with Petit Le Mans for some years. I remember 908vsR10vsRS Spyder with GTE doorhandle to doorhandle.

GTD are just grid fillers imo.

I would suggest that you give it another try. The racing over the past two seasons has been dramatic - good door handle to door handle - where the top five have regularly been separated by just a few seconds in each class. While I did love the ALMS days that featured the RS spyders and other top prototypes, the cars racing in IMSA now are faster than all but the remaining Toyotas in the WEC. The GTLM cars are identical to the WECs GTE and the GTD provide tight flag to flag racing with a wide variety of makes in the field. The championship in all three classes will be up for grabs in the season finale.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I would suggest that you give it another try. The racing over the past two seasons has been dramatic - good door handle to door handle - where the top five have regularly been separated by just a few seconds in each class. While I did love the ALMS days that featured the RS spyders and other top prototypes, the cars racing in IMSA now are faster than all but the remaining Toyotas in the WEC. The GTLM cars are identical to the WECs GTE and the GTD provide tight flag to flag racing with a wide variety of makes in the field. The championship in all three classes will be up for grabs in the season finale.

Yeah I have to agree. IMSA is in the best shape it's been in for years.

The DPi category works very well, GTE and GTD are pretty healthy. The racing all year has been pretty good so far. Places like Mosport, Watkins Glen, VIR are a breath of fresh air to the likes of other sterile race tracks we see in other forms of Motorsport.

No I'm not a fan of the BoP in DPi, it was killing the performance of the works teams in an effort to allow the privateer LMP2's to keep up but IMSA are going to try separate categories for those cars next year and hopefully it will work. If it doesn't IMSA are at least are not afraid to make changes if needed.

IMSA like Indycar are looking so good at the moment in my view.

Hopefully I'm going to try and make it to Sebring next year. The double header event is just too good to miss

As for the Petit Le Mans. I'll stick my neck out and say I hope Mazda does the business this time around. They've been so close this year and it would be great for them to win.

 

[Tbear]

I would suggest that you give it another try. The racing over the past two seasons has been dramatic - good door handle to door handle - where the top five have regularly been separated by just a few seconds in each class. While I did love the ALMS days that featured the RS spyders and other top prototypes, the cars racing in IMSA now are faster than all but the remaining Toyotas in the WEC. The GTLM cars are identical to the WECs GTE and the GTD provide tight flag to flag racing with a wide variety of makes in the field. The championship in all three classes will be up for grabs in the season finale.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

All three classes are loaded with heavy-weight drivers, cars and teams. Anybody who watched the Road America race will tell you this is gonna be a slug-fest from green to checker. This race has all the makings of the best race of the year on anybody's calendar, make no mistake.

If you miss it you'll be very sorry you did.

 

[FernandoAFM]

Let me know if anyone wants to meet! It’ll be cool meeting some of you guys!

 

[Durge Driven]

Let me know if anyone wants to meet! It’ll be cool meeting some of you guys!

Crazy more don't meet up, build proper ( floor , good tent & 2 ton generator)
then sim for a week solid @ night.......... bugger lining up for some simulator

Invite people to watch ...set up ropes, outside TV etc etc

Design some T shirts for sick childrens charity
Design sticker for the charity ............2nd year get them put on the cars, drivers have sick kids too
Advertising banners on tent roof for helicopters

Skys the limit ......think of where "pink" day has come

P.S. I first thought / suggested this when Road America was being released for F1 -2002 .......go to Road Am with the new track ( pretty sure it was released on the proper race weekend ) .......people said I was crazy lool

 

[Tbear]

Let me know if anyone wants to meet! It’ll be cool meeting some of you guys!

It's too late this year, but remind me next year, I built a small camper bus with gen set, refridge/freezer, hot water ... the works. I might be old but I still party hardy!

 

[CptAsian]

I'm planning to go with some guys from my FSAE team, and I'm beyond excited. Somehow I've gotten this far without attending a race in real life, and I'm trying to catch up with the season replays on Youtube before Saturday. It'll be a long day, but I can't wait.

 

[Bonehead]

Also don't forget the November IMSA/ MX5 event at Sebring November 9th thru 11th.
https://sebringraceway.com/sebring-events/michelin-sportscar-encore

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

no better warmup than having played the iRacing IMSA series at Road Atlanta all through last week. Just a pity their prototypes are not representative of the 2018 IMSA field, the GT classes are fine by me. Played the Ferrari GTE and had a fun 1h event, great track for those cars.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

PLM finishes just as Fuji WEC starts, this is going to be a real endurance spectator weekend too.

IMSA is in good form at the moment and I've enjoyed some of the racing even if it has been a bit hard to follow who is in what position across stops at times, but if they keep doing these slow safety cars I worry about the amount of actual racing there will be on a circuit like RA. Two SC took up the entire first driver stint at Laguna fortunately the rest of that race was excellent, but I wish there had been more of it.

GTD is fine - they're not really much slower than GTLM & the cars are ( marginally in a couple of cases! ) cheaper than GTE cars, even year-old ones like WEC GTE-AM. Just imagine if they were GT4...

On a related note to SC, why don't US recovery crews use the FIA-mandated crane points? lifting the car it's a fair bit quicker than dragging a dead car up a ramp, and the only cars which might not have them are the DPi - but they're converted P2 so it would seem a bit daft to take them off.

International viewers - have a look at something like Streamlink; it will let you send the 720p web feed to a decent media player.

 

[bgil66]

What would be even more fun is to have an official IMSA game coming out soon

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

dlc for acc?

 

[bgil66]

I wish but doubt it as I believe they will eventually have all the series under the SRO Motorsports umbrella