Porsche fan-tastic in Atlanta
This year Road Atlanta celebrated the 20th Petit Le Mans at its 2.54 mile, 11-turn track. The weather was fan-tastic with 77° for the high and 55° for the low. Thankfully the rain from the hurricane that caused me to miss the Thursday night practice due to my flight arriving late into Atlanta stopped later that night.
At the event the #911 Porsche was driven by Frederic Makowiecki, Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy. The #912 Porsche was driven by the drivers that came to the Wallingford Porsche meeting, Earl Bamber, Laureens Vanthoor and the new Porsche Junior driver Matthieu Jaminet.
Friday began with practice and qualifying in the afternoon. In GTLM BMW took the Pole, followed by Corvette and the Porsche #912 with Patrick Pilet in 5th. In GTD the Park Place Porsche unfortunately qualified 13th while Wright Motorsports did not contest qualification at all as they had to replace the engine and start last.
Saturday, race day started with warmup for the teams followed by a front straight car display for the fans which featured a display of Panoz race cars in rememberance of Don Panoz who passed away earlier this year. Don was a well-known car builder and team owner as well as the organizer of this series.
The race started with a tribute to Don Panoz, with the Panoz Esperante followed by the famous Deltawing, designed by Panoz, making two parade laps around. He was a very approachable guy and was always around this race track during race week.
The race began under sunny warm blue skies with a large entourage of people in the stands. Porsche, celebrating the 70th anniversary this year, did a retro livery for the 24 hours of Le Mans with the Pink Pig, so for the Petit Le Mans they did it once again with a retro livery of the Iconic design from the Porsche 911 GT1-98, which won the overall at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1998 . The car also sported a memorial decal for Dave Maraj, whose Champion Racing team won the GT1 class with the previous generation Porsche GT Evo. Do you remember what the GT1-98 did that year as well?*

During the race the Porsche #912 had been in the lead, but a punctured tire on the 72nd lap and subsequent drive thru penalty meant that the team was not able to advance among the fierce competition of the GTLM class, yet finished only 1 minute behind the #911 car in 6th place after 10 hours of racing.

With consistent lap times and perfect pit stops, the #911 Porsche team of Makowiecki, Pilet and Tandy worked their way to the lead with about 3 hours left to the race. Makowiecki drove into the lead and defended the position, handing it over to Tandy who continued to defend and crossed the finish line in 1st place by 11.443 seconds in front of the Corvette team. What is most impressive is that the #911 car had at one point been at the back of the GTLM class and one lap down, and then went on to win! So the Porsche record this year includes wins at Sebring, the 24 hours of Le Mans and Petit Le Mans.
Nick Tandy said, “Our focus was on ensuring that the car was still fast in the cool temperatures at the end and it all worked PERFECTLY, and that was the key to the race.”
Fred Makowieck said, “Victory at Sebring, at the Nurburgring and now here, Petit Le Mans —AMAZING! It shows just how well Patrick, Nick and I work as a team. As a driver it simply feels fantastic to win three big races in one year.”
In GTD Class, the Wright Motorsport Porsche driven by Patrick Long, Christina Nielsen and Robert Renauer could not qualify because they had to change the engine and they started the race in the back. They drove a strong race, however a drive thru penalty cost them the GTD win, but to come In 4th was an outstanding finish for the team.
The Park Place Motorsport Porsche driven by all my friends, Wolf Henzler (WH), Spencer Pumpelly and Tim Pappas unfortunately had to retire their car early. Tim Pappas has come to a CVR meeting at Jim Newton’s and also brought his Black Swan Le Mans winning Porsche to our concours one year. I hope to bring to you an article about Tim Pappas and his Porsche venture this year, competing in the WEC around the world starting at Bathurst, Australia, to Japan and Europe along with his US racing.
Porsche AG has extended the squad/team contract for 3 more years and is now starting to prepare for next season.
So, if you remembered correctly, that Porsche GT1- 98 won the 24 hours of Le Mans overall that year. But do you remember what it did at the 1998 Petit Le Man? It did that unforgettable, or what some may want to forget, a 360 degree flip on the start of the back straight after turn 7 and what is called turn 8 where the track dips a little, with driver Yannick Dalmas, then the tail hit the ground before hitting the barrier. He walked away.

This year was a pretty good year for Porsche racing! I had many good times with the team and travels. It was great to be able to arrange for the team to come to a CVR meeting at Wallingford Porsche with the Wallingford staff doing all the preparations and presentation.
As the team said, a new seasons starts now. And so I/we have to see what comes next year.
Hope to see you at the next CVR monthly meeting or Sebring.