[ILMC/ALMS]2010 Petit Le Mans - Road Atlanta

[Tom206wrc]

Hey, don't forget this race will run THIS week :D

Audi vs Peugeot, next round :cool:

http://www.americanlemans.com/
http://www.imsaracing.net/

First free practices start tomorrow wednesday ;)

[harvick#1]

Driving down tomorrow :D

[wedge]

Driving down tomorrow :D

I'm jealous! :D

Enjoy yourself, dude.

What's the weather like for the weekend? Hope it won't be like last year.

[harvick#1]

I'm jealous! :D

Enjoy yourself, dude.

What's the weather like for the weekend? Hope it won't be like last year.

perfect, as long as the tropical depression stays in its projected path, but even that will be gone by Thursday.

but mid 70's everyday and clear. so it will prolly favor Peugeot, but Audi's car is new so I dont know what the R15+ will do. but with 45 cars on a tight circuit, expect alot of sparks to fly

[courageous]

Going to be a headache keeping track of everything

Audi should do better against the Pugs than at silverstone

P2 & the ALMS championship will be a way behind (Cytosport fave for the win, but Highcroft just need to do 70% to take the title)

LMPC Tucker & Geanette are tied on points, Tucker of course gets 2 chances to score.

How far into the GT2s will the hybrid porsche get?

AWOL back in a Jaguar
Panoz in classic livery (probably won't race though)
Werner & Pirro return
3 Intersport cars (2 lmpc)
1st Pescarolo chassis (Henri's team ran a courage once)
Hindy shall rant about pace cars
Fans will battle fire ants
It will not rain like last year

[FormerFF]

This was an odd weather day. A shower passed through in the morning, dampening the qualifying. I got there about the time that the Barber cars were getting off of the track. Next up came the Trans-Am cars, which are mostly club racing GT1 cars, and not very many at that. One thing that was kind of cool for me is that John Baucom is racing in this series. I knew his dad from my racing days. I have a feeling that the Trans-Am race is going to be a bit of a snooze.

Best race of the day was for the GT3 Porsches. There had been a second rain shower, which took up most of the Star Mazda qualifying and all the ALMS practice. The GT3 race started in the wet, was red flagged for a tire change, and ended in the dry, and it was close during both halves. The Prototype Lites was pretty good as well. The US F2000 race was processional. A 15 year old driver won it going away. I didn't stay for the Barber race, I'll catch the other one tomorrow.

We should be done with the showers, the forecast for tomorrow and race day are perfect.

[Tom206wrc]

Sunny weather announced for today qualifying practice and tomorrow(+ sunday)race :bounce:

I want 10 hours of race not 5 hours of shower race :mad:

[FormerFF]

Much better weather today, and a big crowd on hand, probably about the size of a raceday crowd from four or five years ago. More of the same expected tomorrow.

Yesterday, the F2000 race wasn't interesting, so I slept in rather than coming up for it. Today's GT3 race wasn't quite so eventful at the front, but there was some serious racing going on farther back, especially after the only yellow flag of the day, to pull a car out of the gravel. The Star Mazda cars are neat and quick. There were a couple of battles farther back, and a last minute charge for second, And yes, Connor Daly, that move you put on WAS a block, and if I were chief steward, you'd be penalized a couple of places.

The prototype Lites are fun to watch, though the race wasn't overly close. The Barber National series only had nine cars. One dropped back a little, then there were eight in a pack. One spun, then there were seven, and they stayed in a pack for the entire race. It was a lot like a Formula Ford race, where a driver would be leading one lap and get put to fifth the next. Definitely the most competitive race of the day.

Qualifying was uneventful.

I stayed for the Trans Am race. There turned out to be a lot more cars than I'd seen yesterday. I'm not much of a fan of V8 engines or front engined race cars, but what can I say, I'm a junkie and didn't feel like going home yet. The level of car preparation and driving was uneven at best, and there were a lot of cars in the pits for such a short race. If I were Road Atlanta, I'm not sure I'd get that race again next year. Watching that made me miss not having the World Challenge series this year.

The track announcer said that one of the Peugeots touched 204 mph in the speed trap last night. That's down a moderately long "straight" (it isn't) and off of a slow turn. 204 freaking MPH, that's mind blowing.

Epic battles:

Ferrari vs. Ford
Porsche vs. Ferrari
Audi vs. Peugeot works for me.

[Mark in Oshawa]

The track announcer said that one of the Peugeots touched 204 mph in the speed trap last night. That's down a moderately long "straight" (it isn't) and off of a slow turn. 204 freaking MPH, that's mind blowing.



At Road Atlanta? My god, I can imagine how fast one of those Pugs might pull up the hill at Mosport then....that is very scary stuff....

[Tom206wrc]

Very good job Anthony Davidson ;)

[wedge]

Scheiße!

[Shifter]

Audi #9 torn up front after going off in the esses and shoveling through a mound in the grass. Possible tub damage.

[FormerFF]

Sunny weather announced for today qualifying practice and tomorrow(+ sunday)race :bounce:

I want 10 hours of race not 5 hours of shower race :mad:

Would you settle for 9:10? :) PLM has never gone 10 hours, though with all those yellows in the middle, I thought this one might.

If you were wondering why the steward called the yellow flags so quickly when the Audi and the Robertson Ford GT went off, there was a lot of marbles and other debris on the track, and they wanted to bring out the blower and clean it off.

I thought that the drivers behaved very well. With 41 cars on track and 20 second lap time difference, the opportunity for carnage was great, but it didn't happen. Most of the yellows were caused by single car incidents, an number of which were for cut tires.

Big crowd on hand, There were at least half again as many people on spectator hill as I'd ever seen before, and probably twice as many in turn 10. Road A reported the three day crowd at 124,000, which probably means 65-70,000 on race day. That's pushing into NASCAR territory. Also, lots of corporate hospitality going on.

Peugeot worked their plan to perfection, and the GT battle was everything everyone expected, with a surprise ending.

The 911 hybrid was very impressive. I'm glad I don't have to figure an equivalency formula for them when they get folded into GT2. Also, the diesels are probably too powerful and will need to be slowed. The acceleration they get coming out of a turn is astounding.

[harvick#1]

well I'm back and sunburnt like mad, but ALMS scored a huge win this year at Petit, the place was packed and the race was fantastic, I was down with the Dyson Racing team for a while.


have over 2000 pics uploading and some videos, I'll be sharing them of course

[harvick#1]

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/Users/Spike/Pictures/2010%20Petit%20Le%20Mans/2010_09_30/IMG_6609.JPG
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[wedge]

Great race and congrats to Peugeot

Lots of individual mistakes.

I wonder who should drive the second Audi in LM? Still think TK/AM/DC line up is looking hard to replace/replicate/

[dataman1]

Great event with a large and enthusiastic crowd.

GT2 championship is decided in the last few laps. BMW wins!

The car corals for corvette, BMW, Porche and Ferrari had bigger attendance and cars were beautiful.

Spoke to an ACO Official from France who officiated due to international event. He was given a ride around track before race start. He remarked that the crowd was incredible, larger than most in Asia and some Europe events.

Great trip.