AE_Racer

Hey guys, I made this post for another forum I visit but thought i'd share here. A few years ago someone started a "day in the life" thread so this is my take on it.

Mods, if you guys would like to move this, be my guest.. Wasn't sure where to put it other than the racing forum but im posting in hopes to generate more info/traffic there. Thanks.

Here's a take on a DITL thread.

The Petit Le Mans is a 10 hour long season finale of the Tudor United Sports Car Championship, ran at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. Prior to 2014 it was the finale of the American Le Mans Series(ALMS). The Tudor championship is a result of merging the ALMS and Rolex Grand Am Series'. The race was founded in 1998, with the ALMS coming in 1999 as hopes to bring the "Le Mans Spirit" to the United States, hence "Little" Le Mans.

I previously attended in 2013. That was my first race and ive since gone to the Sebring 12 hours (twice) as well as the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona.

Earlier in the year I decided I had to make it back to Road Atlanta. About a month ago I bought my ticket early as it saves a few bucks and booked a hotel. Joaquin decided to make my plans interesting. There were conflicting weather forecasts all week. I had already taken off work and made plans to attend so I decided to take a chance.

Below is my journey and experience.. I'll preface the photos by saying they were taken with a potato.. I have a marginally better P&S camera but I couldn't, for the life of me, find the damn charger.

Well, actually, since most reading this are car people i'll start with a car purchase. I have been back and forth with looking for an 8th generation Civic Si sedan. One night last week, a low mileage example popped up locally. Long story short, the dealer had already sold the car and neglected telling me before I dinged my credit and arrived to check it out. SO I looked some more and found another one about 400 miles away in small town of South Carolina. The salesman stuck to his word and hung onto the car for me until I could go this past tuesday to check it out. He also did not overstate the cars condition. It was owned by an older gentleman who took very good care of it. Its a 1 owner car with just under 75k miles, serviced by Honda and 0 accidents.

The shiny new (to me) Civic laughed at the ~1400 miles I put on it this week. Many vtecs were had.



So 4am Friday morning comes and here is the trip im faced with.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr



A quick check of the weather at the destination.. Minus the rain, a welcome change to the high 80s of late here in north FL.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


SiriusXM's BPM and hip hop nation flexed the speakers at high volumes the whole way there and back

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Your bacon egg and cheese mcgriddle will never be the same

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Around 10am, I arrived at the track. So far the weather wasn't looking too bad. A light drizzle. You are looking at Turn 12 which leads on to the front straightaway to the left.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


The Tudor championship cars were doing their final practice session right after I got there.. This is a view into the turn 10 complex. A huge spectating area and to the left there is a jumbotron that displays the race broadcast when available.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


I took a stroll through "vendor village" and to my surprise there was a Porsche 919 LMP1 car... These cars only race in the FIA WEC championship which travels worldwide and makes one stop in the US at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


After going through vendor village, I walked down to the paddock, or the area where all the team transporters are parked and they setup shop to work on the cars between sessions.. Spectators are at free will to walk through the area and get decently close to the teams.

This is a special story.. Michael Shank Racing's LMP2 Ligier chassis is shown very stripped and being feverishly worked on after taking a huge hit in practice the night before.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


My absolute favorite team is Risi Competizione, they run a Ferrari 458 and go up against the factory backed giants of Porsche, Corvette and BMW.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Shortly afterwards, the Continental Tires series, which is a support race to the Tudor series, got underway. This series runs two classes, ST and GS, or Street Touring and Grand Sport. I, of course, found a Honda on track at Turn 1.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Walking up one of the numerous hills of the infield I came across some guys from Endless.. I had no idea they supported teams in any of the series'. Being a jdm whore I of course snapped a picture to share.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr



This picture is again from the infield as I was on my way to the back side of the circuit. Terrain, decent temperature? we're not in Florida anymore...

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr



18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


I made my way all the way around the track and back to the turn 10 complex. The red bulls were doing their job.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


And again back at turn 1. This was close to the end of the continental race. An audi came out a little wide and caught the wet grass.. Took a slow slide into the tire barriers and rolled on its side.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr

AE_Racer

Back at turn 10 again and here you see a corvette during the tudor series qualifying.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Following qualifying was a Lamborghini Super Trofeo race which is another support series. I watched that from the turn 10 area and took one last stroll through the paddock.. Michael Shank Racing (as mentioned above), invited fans to come by and sign the nose cone of their car. The special story I mentioned is: Justin Wilson had raced with MSR in the past and helped them achieve victory at the Rolex 24hr at Daytona. After his tragic death, they had a special commemorative livery for the final 2 races of the season.

RIP

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


A related story.. Before my visit in 2013, another driver, Sean Edwards who raced for the NGT Momo team, had passed.. Similarly, the team had a special livery applied to his car and while it did not compete it was on the grid and completed a lap of its own. As you are also allowed to get up close to the cars during a grid walk before the race, I captured this.

IMG_0232 by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Many tears were shed as the teammates and fellow drivers hugged it out after signing the hood. I am sharing this to show how close you can get and to highlight how tight knit the members of the series are. It is truly an amazing experience every time I go to a race.


Moving along.. At the end of the day I had walked over 8 miles in a pair of vans classics.. Not a very smart idea (I had also climbed 51 stories according the app).

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


I retreated to my hotel to get dry and find some dinner.. I settled for a large Asahi to wash down some nigiri at a highly rated spot thanks to google. No pics but it was ok I guess.. I was super, super tired.


My alarm started yelling at me about 7am saturday morning. After a few snooze taps I finally got up, stopped for some quick breakfast and made it back to the track.

I walked through the paddock once again to find that after wrecking their car pretty badly in qualifying (their first wreck in 7 years of racing, and also their last race, sadly), Falken Tire's Porsche had made it back from a local German auto specialist shop who pulled out one of the rear quarter panels and looked ready to go.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Michael Shanks LMP2 was also ready to go after the crew worked day and night.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Before the race starts the teams do a 15 min warmup. Here is one of the GTD class Vipers coming through turn 1.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


And the GTLM Risi 458


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


Before the race starts, fans are allowed on the track to do a grid walk.


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


After the race started it began raining pretty heavily. I walked the track to its entirety again and got few pics.. touch screen phones are pretty useless when you dont have anything dry to wipe the screen, so heres whats left.

18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr



18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr


18th Annual Petit Le Mans by AE_Racer, on Flickr



The race was literally, and figuratively, a wash. It was supposed to go 10 hours, but I think it only made it to 7-8 hours. With about half that being under caution.

I ended up leaving around 4pm (if it finished the full 10 it would have ended around 9pm) to grab a late lunch and dry off a bit in the car. Listening to the coverage they kept mentioning the race may be canceled as the conditions are horrible, cars keep going off track, etc.. So I stopped by the hotel grabbed my stuff and hit the road. I made it home last night about 1130.. What a weekend.

I am happy to answer any legitimate questions about the race, or attending etc.. If you have a track somewhat close I highly recommend you take a day and attend, it is a great experience.

Also, if you're interested in the least, please join the few of us crazies in the sportscar/endurance racing thread for next weekend's 6 hours of Fuji with the World Endurance Championship. https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/111...racing-thread/

Thanks for reading, or scrolling through the pics.

A 2

Terrific blog. Too bad about the weather. But I loved the unique result

Mark355

Was just watching this on FS1.