Road Atlanta Motorcycle GP + Turn 4

Overview

Road Atlanta, raced under the sponsored name Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta since a naming deal in 2018, is a road course just north of Braselton in Hall County, Georgia, about 50 miles from Atlanta. It occupies a 750-acre tract of former farmland and has been owned since September 2012 by NASCAR through IMSA Holdings. The circuit is best known for Petit Le Mans, the IMSA endurance race it has staged since 1998. It also hosts MotoAmerica, the Trans-Am Series, GT World Challenge America and 24 Hours of LeMons races, along with racing and driving schools, corporate programmes and team testing.

Technical Specifications and Track Features

The Grand Prix circuit has been 4.088 km long with 12 turns since 1998. After the first turn the track climbs into the Esses, which run from turn 3 to turn 5, and the long back straight drops through a downhill compression. The straight once dipped under a bridge, a spot known simply as the Dip; it was removed during the Panoz era, when a left-right chicane was built at the end of the straight late in 1997. Turn 12, a downhill corner that dives onto the main straight, ends the lap. Motorcycle racing uses a slightly longer variant: a chicane at turn 3 was added for bikes in 2003, an extra turn was built at turn 12 in 2008, and a chicane at turn 4 added the same year was removed and grassed over in 2017. When the track was repaved in 2007 ahead of Petit Le Mans, the walls in the Esses were moved back from the edge of the track. Marc Gené holds the unofficial outright lap record of 1:01.200, set in a Ferrari F2003-GA at a Ferrari Corsa Clienti event in 2018.

Facilities and Specialized Areas

A terrace for 10,000 spectators was built around the new turn 10 complex, and a tunnel of about 100 feet improved access to the infield. A $6 million renovation renewed the garages along the pit lane and, in its second phase, added a new pit and paddock area. Two shorter layouts, the Short Course and the Club Course, were added in the late 1990s. Concrete barriers and run-off areas line the circuit.

History

David Sloyer, Earl Walker and Arthur Montgomery bought the farmland in 1969, and the circuit took about six months to excavate, grade and pave at a cost of $1.3 million. The first race, a 300 km Can-Am round on 13 September 1970, was won by Tony Dean in a Porsche 908/02 after Vic Elford took pole in the Chaparral 2J, with Stirling Moss as grand marshal. Through the 1970s the track ran Can-Am, Formula 5000, IMSA Camel GT and Trans-Am races, and it hosted the SCCA Runoffs from 1970 to 1993. NASCAR's Grand American division visited in May 1973 and the Busch Series in 1986 and 1987. Don and Bill Whittington bought the circuit in 1978; it entered bankruptcy in 1993 and passed to a partnership that included Frank Drendel, Jim Kanely, Eddie Edwards and Bill Waddell. Don Panoz bought it in November 1996 and hired Bob Barnard to redesign the course and its facilities. The first Petit Le Mans followed in 1998 as a race over ten hours or 1,000 miles. NASCAR took over in September 2012 when it acquired Panoz Motorsports.