Road Atlanta

In 1969, David Sloyer, Earl Walker, and Arthur Montgomery purchased a 750-acre plot of farmland in Braselton, Georgia, with the intent to build a world-class road racing facility. When a Can-Am race had to be canceled due to flood damage, the series organizers chose Road Atlanta as a replacement. The track took only six months to excavate, grade, and pave.

The first race was held on September 13, 1970. Vic Elford, in a Chaparral 2J, won pole position. Tony Dean, in a Porsche 908/02, won the 300 km Can-Am event, with Stirling Moss serving as Grand Marshal.

Throughout the 1970s, multiple top-level series came to Road Atlanta, including Can-Am, Formula 5000, IMSA Camel GT, and Trans-Am. The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) held their annual national championship, the SCCA Runoffs, at Road Atlanta from 1970 to 1993. The SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 Championship ran at the circuit in 1972, 1973, and 1975. Can-Am events were held from 1970 to 1974 and again in 1978, 1979, 1982, and 1984.

A notable accident occurred in the 1972 Can-Am season when a McLaren M20 driven by Denny Hulme lifted its front over the hump on the back straight and became airborne.

The first road race in NASCAR Busch Grand National Series history took place at Road Atlanta in 1986. The NASCAR Busch Series visited in 1986 and 1987.

The track was sold in 1978 and passed from one owner to the next, culminating in bankruptcy in 1993 under the Whittington Brothers (Don and Bill). Business executives Frank Drendel, Jim Kanely, Eddie Edwards, George Nuse, and Bill Waddell formed a partnership to purchase the track. They spent the next three years making gradual improvements: new buildings, track widening and resurfacing, and landscaping.

In November 1996, Don Panoz purchased the track and made Braselton the base of operations for his motorsports-related ventures. Panoz introduced the first major layout changes, removing the Dip and creating a chicane at the end of the long back straight. These changes brought the track up to FIA standards, enabling international events. A new pit and paddock area was constructed on the infield side of the track, along with a 10,000-seat terrace area around the new Turn 10 complex.

In 1998, major racing resumed with the first edition of the Petit Le Mans endurance race, which attracted worldwide attention including entries from the Le Mans-winning Porsche factory team. The race was the first event of the American Le Mans Series. During the race a Porsche 911 GT1 lifted its front while driving over the hump, backflipped in mid air, and flew into the side barriers. In the 2000 race a similar incident saw a BMW V12 LMR — which had won the 1999 Le Mans — and in that same race a Mercedes-Benz CLR somersaulted no less than three times.

Prior to the 2007 Petit Le Mans, the entire track surface was repaved. The work also included moving the walls in the esses away from the track to improve driver safety and sight lines for spectators. In late winter 2007–2008 the circuit was modified again with the reconfiguration of turns 4 and 12, ostensibly for the safety benefit of motorcycle racers, while the racing line for cars remained essentially unchanged.

The October 2008 Petit Le Mans drew a four-day crowd of 113,000 people, with an average weekend crowd of nearly 80,000 fans.

In September 2012, the track was purchased by IMSA Holdings as part of its acquisition of the Panoz Motor Sports Group, with the intention of combining Grand-Am and the American Le Mans Series.

In 2019 the track became Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta after Michelin and IMSA Holdings announced a naming rights agreement. Michelin had first acquired naming rights to the facility in 2018.

In December 2017 the track hosted its first 24 Hours of LeMons event, the Kim Harmon Scrotium 500.

Regular events include: the IMSA SportsCar Championship Petit Le Mans and Michelin Pilot Challenge Fox Factory 120 in October; MotoAmerica Superbikes at Road Atlanta and Historic Sportscar Racing Classic Motorsports Mitty in April; GT World Challenge America, GT America Series, GT4 America Series, and TC America Series in June; and the SCCA American Road Race of Champions in November. The SCCA National Championship Runoffs ran at Road Atlanta from 1970 to 1993 and are scheduled to return in 2027 and 2028.

The outright unofficial all-time track record is 1:01.200, set by Marc Gené in a Ferrari F2003-GA during a 2018 Ferrari Corsa Clienti event.

Road Atlanta was first included in the 1985 Commodore 64 game Racing Destruction Set. The circuit is featured in the 1999 PC simulator Sports Car GT, the Xbox game Forza Motorsport and all its subsequent entries, the PlayStation 2 game Le Mans 24 Hours, and on iRacing. In November 2022 the track was added to Gran Turismo 7 as part of update 1.26, released to mark that series' 25th anniversary.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.