Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, the 2.54-mile, 12-turn road course a few minutes north of downtown Braselton, fills every fall with the Motul Petit Le Mans, the season-ending endurance race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Race week is the biggest thing on the Braselton calendar all year, and the track and the downtown share the weekend.
The track
The course opened in 1970 with Can-Am racing, Don Panoz bought it in 1996 and created Petit Le Mans in 1998 as a ten-hour, Le Mans-style endurance race, and Michelin's naming has run since the late 2010s. The 2026 race week is scheduled for September 30 through October 3, with the ten-hour finale on Saturday.
Race week
The week runs practice and qualifying midweek, supporting races through the weekend, and the ten-hour finale on Saturday, with camping, the paddock, and the full track-access package around it. General admission and grandstand seats go through the track's own site, and the IMSA event page carries the schedule as it locks.
The planning notes that matter
- Book rooms from Gainesville to Winder early, because lodging fills for race week, and the backstretch camping is the first thing to sell out.
- Traffic into the track on Saturday morning is genuinely heavy, so build an extra hour for the final approach.
- The downtown Braselton square stays open for the weekend, so the race-day breakfast and the evening wine country meals run on the normal town rhythm.
The track's own site and the IMSA event page are the official sources for dates, tickets, and schedules, and the events page carries the dated listing for race week.
Related: the Buford and Lake Lanier fall guide and the fall festivals roundup
Written by
Rob Dietrich