Founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Don Panoz, the American Le Mans Series is a world-class series of sports car endurance racing events patterned after the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans.

American Le Mans Series features multi-class racing among the most elite sports car racing drivers and teams in the world. The starting lineup for every event includes both factory and privateer racing teams going for overall wins as well as wins in one of four classes of competition.

The Series holds 10 North American events on average, and all of which will be televised via ABC Sports, NBC Sports or the SPEED Channel. Seven of the races are "sprint" races of two hours and 45 minutes in length. The longest event is the season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the oldest sports car race in America, at historic Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway. The Series closes its season by "Racing into Darkness" at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the four-hour Monterey Sports Car Championships. The prestigious Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta is a grueling 1,000-mile/10-hour event held in the fall and is a pivotal race for the championship.

Series races are run under the ACO rules, with the events sanctioned and conducted by IMSA (International Motor Sports Association). Teams that regularly compete in Series events receive special consideration in the selection of the prestigious field for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The overall winning team in the 24 Hours of Le Mans six of the past seven years also has been a team that regularly competed in American Le Mans Series events, as were most of the class-winning teams. The Series builds its yearly schedule of events around Le Mans, allowing teams to participate in the pre-practice event in early June and remain in Europe for the mid-June running of the race.

For more information about the series or our race events, please visit our website at www.americanlemans.com.