Atlanta Almost Was The Host For An F1 Grand Prix
How Don Panoz’s F1 Dreams Gave Us The Petit Le Mans
When pharmaceutical entrepreneur Don Panoz bought Road Atlanta in November 1996, he didn’t just want to save a fading Georgia road course. He wanted to put Atlanta on the international racing map, and for a time that meant openly courting Formula 1. The Grand Prix never came. What came instead was Petit Le Mans, a race born at Road Atlanta in October 1998 that grew into an entire championship and still closes the top tier IMSA championships each season.
Panoz made his fortune in pharmaceuticals, most famously through the transdermal nicotine patch, and he already owned the Château Élan winery and resort just minutes from the track. He came to motorsport late, in 1989 at age 54, by bankrolling his son Dan’s Panoz car company. Road Atlanta gave the family something it lacked: a world-class circuit of its own, right next door.
The Beginning: Don Panoz Purchases Road Atlanta November 1996
Panoz took over Road Atlanta in late 1996, ending a long slide that began when the original owners sold the track in 1978. Through the 1970s the 2.54-mile course in Braselton, about 35 miles north of Atlanta, had hosted Can-Am, Formula 5000, IMSA Camel GT and Trans-Am, plus the SCCA Runoffs from 1970 to 1993. It then passed through a series of owners and went bankrupt in 1993.
Panoz purchase the track and ultimately made Braselton the base for all his racing ventures, including the base for his Panoz race and street cars.
After purchasing Road Atlanta, he set out to update the facility, something that had been lacking previously. Panoz hired Bob Barnard, who had helped design the Adelaide Formula 1 street circuit, to redesign the course and facilities. Barnard ultimately became the track’s executive director.
Update came in 2 phases. The first phase kicked off in 1997. Crews built a left-right chicane at the end of the back straight, removing the notorious “dip” under the bridge. New short and club courses, miles of concrete barriers, new runoff areas and a 100-foot tunnel to the infield followed.
Phase 2 followed shortly behind in 1998. A complete second pit lane and paddock was built on the opposite side of the front straight, part of roughly $6 million in renovations. It was still unfinished when the 1998 season opened and was completed mid-year.
The goal was FIA certification, the standard required to host international events. Road Atlanta remains unusual for having pit lanes on both sides of its start-finish straight.
Dan Panoz’s Road Atlanta Formula 1 Dream
Panoz went public with his Grand Prix ambition within months of buying the track. On March 3, 1997, Grandprix.com reported that the newly arrived owner wanted Formula 1 to come to Road Atlanta.
While in a box it almost seems brash. The reality is, it made a lot of sense at the time. America had no Grand Prix at the time. In fact, F1 had not raced in the U.S. since Phoenix in 1991, and Bernie Ecclestone was openly shopping for a permanent American venue.
Road Atlanta had long been on the list. The circuit was widely considered one of the best road courses in the country, and its location near a fast-growing Atlanta made it a perennial candidate. Ecclestone himself was reportedly among the bidders when the track was for sale in 1992.
It fit Panoz’s business. The family was launching the Ford-powered, aluminum-chassis Panoz AIV Roadster and the Esperante GTR-1 race car. A Grand Prix next door to the Panoz factory in Hoschton and the Château Élan resort would showcase all of it.
Through 1998 the Road Atlanta proposal was among the best-publicized U.S. Grand Prix bids. An Atlas F1 survey that year listed it alongside Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Orlando and Watkins Glen, and noted that a promotional company, Peachtree Grand Prix Inc., was pitching the circuit as the U.S. venue while the track was being upgraded to FIA standards.
Where It Stalled: Dispute Over The Sanctioning Fee
By May 1998 the plan had hit a wall over money. Ecclestone wanted about $10 million a year to sanction the race, and Panoz refused to pay it, at least in the short term. Executive director Bob Barnard said the fee made no commercial sense, while insisting Road Atlanta was the best facility in America for a Grand Prix.
Panoz revealed a more measured approach to build toward F1 in stages:
First, Panoz had hoped to land a CART (Indy) race first, which he can hope to have for the 1999 racing season. He than hoped to use that momentum and revenue to fund the remaining F1 upgrades: more grandstands, a new pit lane and race control building, hospitality suites and better road access. Once completed, he intended to approach F1 again with the facility fully up to spec and with a history of hosting open wheel racing.
It never got that far. Ecclestone was reported to be more interested in Las Vegas, and in the end Formula 1 went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, whose infield road course hosted the U.S. Grand Prix from 2000 to 2007.
Sadly, Road Atlanta never held a Formula 1 race.
The other series Panoz pursued
F1 was the headline, but Panoz courted several major series at once. Some came; the biggest open-wheel prize did not.
| Series | What Panoz wanted | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Formula 1 | U.S. Grand Prix at Road Atlanta, publicly floated March 1997 | Stalled over Ecclestone’s roughly $10M fee by May 1998; the race went to Indianapolis in 2000 |
| CART (Champ Car) | An Indy car race “next season” (1999) to fund F1-grade upgrades | Never added to the CART calendar |
| AMA Superbike | Bring top-level motorcycle racing back | Returned May 30–31, 1998, as the first-ever AMA Superbike doubleheader and the first AMA race there since 1994 (Cycle News) |
| IMSA / Professional SportsCar Racing | Restore pro sports car racing at the track | Sports Car Grand Prix of Atlanta held June 21, 1998; Panoz then moved to take over the series itself (Wikipedia) |
| ACO / Le Mans rules | An American race run to 24 Hours of Le Mans rules | Became Petit Le Mans, October 1998 (next section) |
The sports car path was where Panoz had the most leverage. His Esperante GTR-1 had raced at Le Mans since 1997, and he had fallen out with IMSA’s owner, Andy Evans, who had renamed the series Professional SportsCar Racing. In 1998 Panoz negotiated to buy the whole operation, along with the Sebring and Mosport circuits (IMSA). The final transfer of Evans’s remaining assets is dated to 2001 (Wikipedia).
How It Led To The Petit Le Mans
When the Formula 1 door stayed shut, the facility Panoz had rebuilt for a Grand Prix became the stage for Le Mans instead. The FIA-grade upgrades, the second pit lane and the international ambition all fed directly into Petit Le Mans.
Panoz partnered with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), organizer of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which wanted to grow a worldwide series. The ACO lent Panoz the Le Mans name for a new race, “Petit Le Mans” (“little Le Mans”), run to ACO rules. Class winners earned automatic invitations to the next year’s 24 Hours. IMSA, which already raced at Road Atlanta, agreed to a joint event, making it the 1998 season finale.
The format would be Ten hours or 1,000 miles, whichever came first. Road Atlanta’s twin pit lanes let it handle a large multi-class field. The format was fitting of a “little Le Mans”.
While never fully documented, urban legend says Hall counties Sunday quiet hours made it nearly impossible to host a viable 24 hour race without running up against that window. In the end, the opportunity to run and finish in the dark became unique amongst races and it stuck.
The inaugural race was held October 11, 1998. The first Petit Le Mans drew 31 entries, 29 starters, across seven IMSA and ACO classes. It was headlined by the Porsche 911 GT1-98 that had just won Le Mans. Panoz even brought over John Hindhaugh, the English-language voice of Le Mans, to call it. Panoz’s own Esperante GTR-1 also entered, and even led late, but lost its engine roughly 100 miles from the finish.
The event was the test the ACO had set: if it worked, Panoz and the ACO would build a full championship. Before the race had even ended, they agreed to launch the American Le Mans Series in 1999, replacing the IMSA GT Championship. The ALMS opened at Sebring in March 1999, and Road Atlanta hosted two rounds that year: the Grand Prix of Atlanta on April 18 and Petit Le Mans on September 18. Panoz’s front-engined LMP-1 Roadster-S won that second Petit Le Mans outright.
A fun trivia fact, the Atlanta Grand Prix, a second Road Atlanta date on the IMSA calendar, returned for a single year during COVID replacing Watkins Glen.
The Legacy
Atlanta never got its Grand Prix, but the attempt left something more durable. Petit Le Mans became the anchor of the ALMS from 1999 until the series merged with Grand-Am in 2014. In 2012 Panoz sold Road Atlanta, the ALMS and his Sebring interests to NASCAR’s IMSA Holdings. The track became Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in 2019, and Motul Petit Le Mans now draws more than 100,000 fans as the IMSA season finale, often noted as Georgia largest international motorsports evernt. It rivals the turnout of IMSA “big brother” NASCAR’s Atlanta races.
