Race of a Thousand Years explained

The 2000 Race of a Thousand Years was an endurance race and the final round of the 2000 American Le Mans Series. It was run on the Adelaide Street Circuit in Australia on New Year's Eve, 31 December 2000. The race was run on the full 3.780 km (2.349 mi) Grand Prix circuit used by Formula One for the Australian Grand Prix between 1985–1995, rather than the shorter 3.219 km (2.001 mi) Supercars version of the circuit used since 1999. The Race of a Thousand Years was intended to be run for 1000 kilometres but was stopped short due to time constraints, two hours before midnight, after completing 850 kilometres.

Background

Like the 1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000 km, the Race of a Thousand Years was intended as a precursor to a planned Asia-Pacific Le Mans Series (APLMS) run by Don Panoz and the Professional Sports Car Racing body, just as the Silverstone and Nürburgring events earlier in the season were for the European Le Mans Series (ELMS). After a small number of entrants for the European series in 2001, as well as a lack of entrants for a third Asian-Pacific exhibition event at the Sepang Circuit, the APLMS plans were cancelled.

The race was the final of twelve endurance sports car racing rounds of the 2000 American Le Mans Series and took place at the Adelaide Street Circuit on 31 December 2000.^[1] The event was the first in a nine-year contract, but was abandoned after only one. Over 135,000 fans attended the race meeting, with almost 70,000 of them in attendance on race day. Organisers expected around 200,000 people in attendance during the race weekend.

Race Summary

By completing the first 25 laps (and in the lead after having passed teammate Frank Biela on lap 17), Allan McNish became the 2000 American Le Mans Series LMP Drivers' Champion. McNish and teammate Rinaldo Capello completed 225 laps in their Audi Sport North America R8. Australian driver Brad Jones had also qualified the R8 but did not drive in the race. Jones, the team owner and lead driver of Audi's factory backed Super Touring team in Australia, was on stand-by for Scotsman McNish who had injured his back a few days before the race while stepping out of his kilt after a photo shoot and had spent the day before the race flat on his back in bed in a successful effort to be fit to race. The Audi team suffered a setback on the morning of the race when Capello crashed the R8 (painted in crocodile livery in honour of the host country Australia) into the tyre barriers on the outside of turn six. However the team were able to repair the car to allow McNish to start.

The GTS class was won by Olivier Beretta, Karl Wendlinger and Dominique Dupuy who piloted their Team Oreca Dodge Viper GTS-R (known as a Chrysler Viper in Australia) to 3rd outright, while finishing 5th outright were the GT class winners Dirk Müller and Lucas Luhr in their Dick Barbour Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R.

McNish (Audi), Portuguese driver Ni Amorim (Viper) and German Luhr (Porsche) set the fastest laps in their respective classes, with McNish's time of 1:25.2189 being the fastest ever non-Formula One race lap of the Adelaide circuit (compared to the outright lap record of 1:15.381 set by Damon Hill in a Williams FW15C-Renault during the 1993 Australian Grand Prix).

Top 10 Qualifiers

Pos	No	Team	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
Pole	77	Audi Sport North America	Rinaldo Capello	Audi R8	1:23.8038	—
2	78	Audi Sport North America	Frank Biela	Audi R8	1:23.9783	0.1745
3	12	Panoz Motor Sports	David Brabham	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S	1:24.9890	1.1852
4	2	Panoz Motor Sports	Johnny O'Connell	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S	1:25.1683	1.3645
5	1	Panoz Motor Sports	Jan Magnussen	Panoz LMP07	1:26.8596	3.0558
6	31	Motorola DAMS	Éric Bernard	Cadillac Northstar LMP	1:27.5513	3.7475
7	32	Motorola DAMS	Christophe Tinseau	Cadillac Northstar LMP	1:27.7513	3.9475
8	0	Team Rafanelli SRL	Domenico Schiattarella	Lola B2K/10	1:28.8167	5.0129
9	28	Konrad Motorsport	Franz Konrad	Lola B2K/10	1:32.9607	9.1569
10	91	Viper Team Oreca	Olivier Beretta	Dodge Viper GTS-R	1:34.6027	10.7989

Official results

Class winners in bold.

Pos	Class	No	Team	Drivers	Chassis	Tyre	Laps
					Engine
1	LMP	77	Audi Sport North America	Rinaldo Capello Allan McNish Brad Jones	Audi R8		225
					Audi 3.6L Turbo V8
2	LMP	28	Konrad Motorsport	Franz Konrad Charles Slater Alan Heath	Lola B2K/10		204
					Ford (Roush) 6.0L V8
3	GTS	91	Viper Team Oreca	Olivier Beretta Karl Wendlinger Dominique Dupuy	Dodge Viper GTS-R		202
					Chrysler 8.0L V10
4	GTS	92	Viper Team Oreca	Jean-Philippe Belloc Ni Amorim	Dodge Viper GTS-R		202
					Dodge Chrysler 8.0L V10
5	GT	5	Dick Barbour Racing	Dirk Müller Lucas Luhr	Porsche 911 GT3-R		199
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
6	GT	15	Dick Barbour Racing	Randy Wars John Graham Christian Menzel	Porsche 911 GT3-R		191
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
7	GT	6	Prototype Technology Group (PTG)	Terry Borcheller Anthony Lazzaro	BMW M3		190
					BMW 3.2L I6
8	GTS	61	Chamberlain Motorsport	Milka Duno Stephen Watson Ray Lintott	Chrysler Viper GTS-R		190
					Chrysler 8.0L V10
9	LMP	12	Panoz Motor Sports	David Brabham Greg Murphy Jason Bright	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S		190
					Élan 6L8 6.0L V8
10	GT	10	Prototype Technology Group (PTG)	Brian Cunningham Bill Auberlen Niclas Jönsson	BMW M3		190
					BMW 3.2L I6
11	GT	66	The Racer's Group	Robert Orcutt Darren Palmer Christian D'Agostin	Porsche 911 GT3-R		188
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
12	GT	8	Haberthur Racing	Patrick Vuillaume Manfred Jurasz Francesc Gutiérrez	Porsche 911 GT3-R		187
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
13 DNF	LMP	0	Team Rafanelli SRL	Domenico Schiattarella Didier de Radigues Norman Simon	Lola B2K/10		183
					Judd GV4 (Rafanelli) 4.0L V10
14	GT	30	White Lightning Racing	Mike Fitzgerald Randy Pobst	Porsche 911 GT3-R		178
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
15	LMP	78	Audi Sport North America	Frank Biela Emanuele Pirro	Audi R8		170
					Audi 3.6L Turbo V8
16	GT	70	Skea Racing International	Johnny Mowlem Richard Dean	Porsche 911 GT3-R		164
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
17	GT	51	Dick Barbour Racing	Sascha Maassen Bob Wollek	Porsche 911 GT3-R		162
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
18 DNF	GT	69	Kyser Racing	Kye Wankum Joe Foster Jeff Pabst	Porsche 911 GT3-R		159
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
19 DNF	LMP	31	Motorola DAMS	Éric Bernard Emmanuel Collard	Cadillac Northstar LMP		72
					Cadillac Northstar 4.0L Turbo V8
20 DNF	LMP	32	Motorola DAMS	Christophe Tinseau Marc Goossens	Cadillac Northstar LMP		54
					Cadillac Northstar 4.0L Turbo V8
21 DNF	GT	71	Skea Racing International	Doc Bundy Rohan Skea Des Wall	Porsche 911 GT3-R		53
					Porsche 3.6L Flat-6
22 DNF	GT	7	Prototype Technology Group (PTG)	Hans-Joachim Stuck Boris Said Johannes van Overbeek	BMW M3		30
					BMW 3.2L I6
23 DNF	GTS	37	Intersport Racing	Vic Rice Kevin Buckler	Porsche 911 GT2		19
					Porsche 3.8L Turbo Flat-6
24 DNF	LMP	1	Panoz Motor Sports	Jan Magnussen Klaus Graf	Panoz LMP07		2
					Élan (Zytek) 4.0L V8
DSQ^†	LMP	2	Panoz Motor Sports	Hiroki Katoh Johnny O'Connell Klaus Graf	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S		187
					Élan 6L8 6.0L V8

† – No. 2 Panoz was disqualified for allowing an unassigned driver, Klaus Graf, to drive the car during the race.

Statistics

• Pole Position – Rinaldo Capello – No. 77 Audi Sport North America – 1:23.804
• Fastest Lap – Allan McNish – No. 77 Audi Sport North America – 1:25.219
• Average Speed – 148.048 km/h

References

• Auto Action, 12–18 January 2001
• Official Program, Adelaide Race of a Thousand Years, 29–31 December 2000

External links

• Official results, www.imsaracing.net, as archived at web.archive.org
• www.lemansadelaide.com.au, as archived at web.archive.org

Notes and References

1. Web site: Adelaide: Race of a Thousand Years. Frank. Michael. 14 December 2000. Forbes. 6 April 2018.