Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta

Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta sits on Winder Highway in Braselton, in the hill country of Hall County, about an hour northeast of downtown Atlanta. The current 4.088-kilometre, 12-turn “Grand Prix Circuit” layout — in use since 1998 — runs clockwise through rolling Georgia terrain, with real elevation change built into nearly every sector: compressions, blind crests and downhill-to-uphill transitions rather than a flat, predictable line. It is one of the more physically demanding circuits on any GT calendar, purely from what the topography does to a single lap — there is no long straight to rest on, only a rhythm of climbs and drops that punishes a driver who gets the rotation wrong even once.

Two sections define a lap here. The Esses is a fast left-right-left combination that drops downhill before climbing back up, rewarding commitment through a blind compression. Late in the lap the track dives downhill into Turn 12, a diving right-hander with a heavy compression at the apex that feeds straight onto the front straight — the last thing a driver sorts out before the fastest part of the circuit, and the corner most likely to catch out a car that isn't settled.

Carved into the Georgia foothills in 1970, Road Atlanta has been a proving ground of American sports-car racing for half a century — the home of Petit Le Mans and the school where generations of GT drivers learned the Esses. For The Paddock Society it is more than a round: it is home, the only confirmed venue, the point the whole championship is built outward from. Every founding member's season begins here.

Home. A full paddock takeover: private garage suites, trackside hospitality, and laps in the golden hour — the founding gathering of the season.

Road Atlanta opened on September 13, 1970, with a 300-kilometre Can-Am race won by Tony Dean. It hosted the SCCA National Runoffs through the 1970s, 80s and into the 90s, and has run Trans-Am Series races for decades. Since 1998 it has been the annual home of Petit Le Mans, one of IMSA's marquee endurance classics and one of the sport's true fall traditions, and every April the HSR “Mitty” historic weekend brings cars from across motorsport history back into the paddock. Half a century in, it remains one of the circuits every serious GT driver is expected to have learned.

Official circuit website →