2013 Petit Le Mans

Road Atlanta in Braselton, Ga. hosted the 16^th Petit Le Mans, the final race of the American Le Mans Series, this past Saturday, Oct. 19. The Petit Le Mans is an auto endurance race held annually at Road Atlanta since 1998. The race continues until a maximum of 10 hours or 1,000 miles is reached.

On Saturday, early morning rain soaked the Road Atlanta track but the pavement was already in the process of drying once conditions improved and the green flag was waved at 11:30 a.m. There were numerous incidents and retirements throughout the competition, which would help to determine the final results.

Photo courtesy of motorsport.com

This year, Neel Jani, along with his co-drivers Nick Heidfeld and Nico Prost won the ALMS for the Rebellion Racing team after leading 228 of the 394 laps. Rebellion was at the front of the pack for the entire first hour before exiting to the pits for repairs after sideswiping another car.

Jani’s Toyota fought with the Muscle Milk team’s Honda driven by Lucas Luhr, Klaus Graf, and Romain Dumas throughout the race, but was eventually victorious after seemingly endless laps on the 2.5-mile circuit. After a struggle for the lead, Dumas was forced to pull the team’s Honda out of the race due to overheating issues. Rebellion’s win prevented what would be Muscle Milk’s ninth consecutive win.