The Rebellion Racing trio of Nick Heidfeld, Neel Jani and Nicholas Prost drove away from the field Saturday at Road Atlanta to win the 16th annual Petit Le Mans. It was the final checkered flag for the Braselton-based American Le Mans Series sanctioning body as it will be merged with NASCAR’s Grand Am Series next year to form the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.
The winning Rebellion team, a P1 team that also won last year’s Petit Le Mans in a runaway, won by six laps over the top P2 team of Ryan Brisoe, Scott Tucker and Marino Franchitti, which finished second overall.
The biggest hurdle for the winning team came in the opening laps of the 1,000-mile marathon when the No. 12 made contact with another car exiting pit road.
The team battled back and took command of the race when the Muscle Milk Racing No. 6 HPD ARX-03c, which entered the race having won eight consecutive ALMS events and clinched the P1 championship weeks ago, fell out of the lead with an overheated engine near the halfway point, at Lap 201.
The winning No. 12 led the rest of the way, crossing the finish line 20 laps ahead of the second-place P1 car, a LolaB12/60 driven by Chris Dyson and Tony Burgess.
Third overall and second in P2 was the HPD ARX-03b of Scott Sharp, David Brabham and Acworth’s Anthony Lazzaro.
In GT, Wolf Henzler, Nick Tandy and Atlanta’s Bryan Sellers took the victory driving a three-year-old Porsche that had been relegated to show-car duty until the team wrecked its primary car a little more than a month ago.
“This is one we’ll remember forever,” Sellers said.
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