Words: Tyler Rampersaud
Photos: Andrew Miterko
Everyone knows endurance racing is hard. In fact, everyone knows that racing is hard, and it doesn’t take me being a lifelong car enthusiast to imagine that, in the case of Le Mans, for instance, operating a car on what is partially a street circuit for a full, consecutive day of intense driving takes exceptional skill and resilience. However, it wasn’t until I was invited to this year’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta by Rolex that I realized just how severe an understatement “endurance racing is hard” really is.
My experience at Petit Le Mans started on Friday, the day before the race. A late morning arrival saw traffic already beginning to spill across the two-lane road in Braselton, Georgia, that Road Atlanta calls home, and an atmosphere of excitement was already very much alive. In just 24 hours, the season finale of this year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship would begin, and ten hours after that, the season would be over, winners on the podium, and every team, car, and driver seeing the end of an arduous, year-long journey.
Gran Turismo 7 gave me some information about the track going into the experience. It’s a fun track to play in the game, with its challenging esses and a relatively short length of just over two and a half miles. However, no video game or simulator experience could have prepared me for the majesty of the venue. The elevation changes, which total multiple stories, are much more dramatic than the third-person view of a driving game suggests, and that especially goes for turn 12, which comes right before the main straight.
A hot lap experience gave me a much more personal feel for the track than I had through gaming, and while waiting in the paddock for it to begin, turn 12 towered above. In the back seat of the Lexus IS 500, and in the passenger seat of the Ford Mustang GTD, two bastions of V8 performance, the thrill of the track’s hilly, twisting path became all too real. Both drivers expertly dove into corners, pushing both machines to their limits as they were flung across the legendary circuit.
However, more than being on the track itself, it was our conversations with some of the teams that immersed me further in the world of motorsport than I’d ever been. One of the most memorable was with Whelen Cadillac, where we got to see the partially assembled Cadillac V-Series.R that would ultimately win the race up close and personal. Talking to some of the crew, I was able to see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of labor and effort that goes into the sport of endurance racing.
As the team prepared for qualifying that afternoon, I learned about the incredible amount of data, strategy, time, and money that goes into each season and each race. Meanwhile, as I stepped out of the way, crew members worked tirelessly and silently, in mesmerizing coordination, as they carefully set the car up for qualifying laps.
After that, a tour of the grounds coincided with the teams completing their qualifying laps, offering incredible views of the esses, the tight turns 6 and 7, and the chicane, comprising turns 10a and 10b. On a golf cart, we passed crowds of fans attentively watching the cars pass by, cars like a Dodge Viper and a Lamborghini Gallardo simply parked in the dirt on the side of the road, as well as campsites throughout the grounds where groups of families and friends stayed in anticipation of the IMSA season finale the next day.
Race day dawned, and it started with a grid walk for the fans in the morning, where fans were able to get up close and personal, standing right next to the GTD and GTD Pro cars in the race, as well as getting to meet the teams and drivers for those teams on the track’s asphalt. As soon as the race started, a crash involving six GTD cars took some cars out of the race immediately. A chorus of groans in the crowd demonstrated that no matter who was rooting for who, such an incident was a shame. Even in their disappointment, every spectator seemed full of love for the sport.
A tour of the pits provided a close look at the quick yet meticulous work that goes into a pit stop, with a crowd of people occupying the small space as efficiently and purposefully as possible. Tires were being pushed and wheeled back and forth the whole time. Even with tens of thousands of tires on the track for the race weekend, each team had to strategize the limited amount they were allotted.
We also had the opportunity to converse with two titans in the IMSA universe: the legendary racing driver Scott Pruett and IMSA President John Doonan. Now working for race control, Pruett enjoys a long and successful racing career to look back on, having bought himself a Rolex watch for a victory in IROC nearly 40 years ago, a watch he wore to this year’s Petit Le Mans.
Race control is where Pruett still plays a role on the track, a place where incredible amounts of data, cutting-edge technology, and a passionate crew work to maintain a careful balance of safety, fair competition, and entertainment for the fans. Miles of fiber cables are laid throughout the track by IMSA to provide teams and race control with incredible amounts of data about each team and car as the race progresses. Whelen Cadillac pointed out that the car had two O2 sensors: one for the team’s data and one for IMSA’s.
Speaking of the fans, it was during the pit tour that we learned that tickets had been completely sold out sometime after the race started. Traffic on the road in Braselton stretched a mile in each direction, an unprecedented level of spectatorship. John Doonan was swollen with pride at this during our conversation.
As the sun went down, campfires began to be lit, and the track took on a whole different personality, with the esses illuminated by headlights, and brake glow coloring the view of the chicane. What started as levelheaded excitement became anxious anticipation as the race neared its end at 10:10, with Whelen Cadillac being in front for much of the last hour, and the team using the last of their energy (as the GTP cars are hybrids, the term “energy” is used in place of fuel) to keep a lead that was only maintained by a matter of seconds.
Earl Bamber, whom we met earlier, crossed the line victorious, with a fireworks display signaling the end of the race and the end of the 2025 season of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. While the V-Series.R’s victory didn’t stop Porsche from defending its championship titles, it was still a satisfying and exciting victory to watch.
A long day came to an end for me. Still, it was clearly a much longer day and a longer year for the unfathomable number of people behind each team, behind the track, and behind IMSA, not only striving for victory but also working thanklessly to make the race happen in the first place. My biggest takeaway from my first time at an endurance race, this year’s Petit Le Mans with Rolex, was that everyone there, from the event staff letting visitors in to the people hauling carts of tires across the paddock, embodied a sense of purpose and joy that epitomized passion for motorsport.
