The track · Race week · Braselton
Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta
Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta is the 2.54-mile, 12-turn road course on 750 acres just north of Braselton, one of the country's great permanent circuits and the home of the Motul Petit Le Mans, the season-ending endurance race of IMSA's WeatherTech championship.
The track opened in 1970, Don Panoz bought it in 1996 and created Petit Le Mans in 1998, and Michelin's naming has run since the late 2010s. Race week is the biggest thing on the Braselton calendar all year.
The track
Fifty years of racing on the Braselton hill country
The course opened in September 1970 with a Can-Am race and went on to host Can-Am, Formula 5000, IMSA's Camel GT, Trans-Am, and the SCCA Runoffs through the decades. Don Panoz acquired the track in 1996 and created Petit Le Mans in 1998 as a ten-hour, Le Mans-style endurance race, a format the track still anchors today.
Race week
Petit Le Mans: the season finale on track
Motul Petit Le Mans is the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's season-ending ten-hour race, and the event has historically run in late September and early October. The 2026 race week is scheduled for September 30 through October 3. Race 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.
The honest race-week notes: book lodging in the whole area early, because rooms from Gainesville to Winder fill for race week; the backstretch camping is the first thing to sell out; and the traffic into the track on Saturday morning is genuinely heavy. The track's own site and the IMSA event page are the official sources for dates, tickets, and schedules.
Beyond race week
The year-round calendar
Road Atlanta runs more than Petit Le Mans: the vintage and club racing weekends, the drifting events, the car club days, and the track-day programs fill the calendar from spring to fall. The standalone track tours and the paddock access make it a satisfying day out even between race weekends. The track's official site carries the full list, and the Braselton events filter shows what is confirmed on the guide's calendar.
An editorial guide, not a listings site. Updated September 13, 2026. Real-estate guidance on this page is provided by Rob Dietrich, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, LLC.