As the 10-hour season-ending Petit Le Mans dragged on, it seemed more and more possible that a GT Le Mans entry could win overall.
The checkered flag was suddenly thrown, and history was made.
After two separate incidents involving three PC cars past the halfway mark of the eighth hour, the race never returned to green as the track was as treacherous as it had been all day as night began to fall.
Nick Tandy, charging in the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR of Porsche North America most notably from the beginning of the eighth hour of a race that didn't make it to its full 10-hour length, won the Petit Le Mans for the GTLM class and overall.
Tandy finished ahead of fellow GTLM competitor Jens Klingmann of the No. 24 BMW Z4 GTE of BMW Team RLL, making it two GT cars ahead of the top-three in the flagship Prototype class who followed.
Victorious in the Prototype category and taking the class title when the race was suddenly ended was the No. 5 Corvette DP of Action Express Racing with Joao Barbosa at the wheel. The No. 01 Riley-Ford DP of Chip Ganassi Racing was brought home by Verizon IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon second in-class and fourth overall ahead of the second Action Express car, the No. 31, of Eric Curran, Dane Cameron and Max Papis.
Rounding out the GTLM podium behind these top-three in the Prototype class was the No. 3 Corvette C7.R of Corvette Racing.
Winning the Prototype Challenge class was the No. 52 ORECA FLM09 of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports which was able to return to the track after being one of three aforementioned PC cars involved in the incident past the halfway mark of the eighth hour (escaping from damage after only briefly running off track), but taking the class title by virtue of starting the race was the No. 54 CORE autosport car, despite the incident that saw its race end early with third-seat driver Anthony Lazarro behind the wheel.
In GT Daytona, the No. 63 Ferrari 458 Italia of Scuderia Corsa won the championship as Townsend Bell, Bill Sweedler and Jeff Segal brought the car home in fourth. The TRG-AMR Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3, which led the class by a single point entering the finale weekend, finished ninth in-class ahead of the title rival No. 48 Audi R8 LMS of Paul Miller Racing. With the TRG-AMR Aston Martin finishing ninth, Christina Nielsen was unsuccessful in becoming the first female driver to win an international sports car championsip. Winning the race for the GTD class, though, was the No. 73 Porsche 911 GT America of Park Place Motorsports with drivers Spencer Pumpelly, Patrick Lindsey and Madison Snow.
It cannot be sugar coated: the weather at Braselton, Georgia's Road Atlanta was terrible from Thursday afternoon on. Despite it being a race that truly dragged on for seven hours of 51 minutes, just over two hours short of its 10-hour length, with various full-course yellow periods and even an hour-long red flag, history was made as Tandy stunned.
Next up for what will be the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is The Roar Before The Rolex 24, set for January 8-10, 2016, at Daytona International Speedway. After that, the 2016 season will get underway more officially with the Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 28-31.
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