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50-805: The Six Hour Le Mans was an endurance motor race for sports cars and touring cars held annually in Western Australia , Australia from 1955 to 1972. Initially run at the Caversham Airfield circuit, the event was moved, along with all other WA circuit racing, to the then new Wanneroo Raceway in 1969. Endurance racing (motorsport) One of the more common lengths of endurance races can be running for 500 kilometres (310 mi), or roughly 3 hours, or 1,000 kilometres (620 mi), or roughly 6 hours. Longer races can run for 1,000 miles (1,600 km), 12 hours, or even 24 hours. Teams can consist of anywhere from two to four drivers per event, which

100-460: A Rolex Daytona watch. The race is known as a leg of the informal Triple Crown of endurance racing along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring . Shortly after the track opened, on April 5, 1959, a six-hour/1000 kilometer USAC - FIA sports car race was held on the road course. Count Antonio Von Dory and Roberto Mieres won the race in a Porsche , shortened to 560.07 miles (901.35 km) due to darkness. The race used

150-524: A 3.81-mile layout, running counter-clockwise. This event is not considered to be part of the lineage of the eventual 24-hour race. In 1962, a 3-hour sports car race was introduced. Known as the Daytona Continental, it counted towards the FIA 's new International Championship for GT Manufacturers . The first Continental was won by Dan Gurney , driving a 2.7L Coventry Climax -powered Lotus 19 . Gurney

200-419: A career in a non-motorsport related occupation. These type of drivers are typically eligible for IMSA's Jim Trueman and Bob Akin awards, awarded to the top driver who is not a professional at the end of season. These amateur drivers or overage professional drivers (FIA Silver or Bronze are typically for amateur drivers but professional drivers over 55 are automatically classified at this level) are required in

250-623: A competitor of the American Le Mans Series , which, as its name implies, uses the same regulations as the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Grand Am series, though, is instead closely linked to NASCAR and the original ideas of IMSA and focused on controlled costs and close competition. In order to make sports car racing less expensive than elsewhere, new rules were introduced in 2002. The dedicated Daytona Prototypes (DP) use less expensive materials and technologies and

300-568: A custom engine and bodywork from a major manufacturer. For 2023, the race adopted the LMDh prototype specification, although Le Mans Hypercars were also permitted. The series has also returned to the Grand Touring Prototype name from the 1980's. The Gran Turismo class cars at Daytona are closer to the road versions, similar to the GT3 class elsewhere. For example, the more standard Cup version of

350-455: A distance of 10,739 kilometres (6,673 mi) with a winning time of 70 hours over 20 days with three classes of cars, motorbikes, and trucks. The 1992 Paris–Cape Town Rally covered a distance of 12,427 km. The 1994 edition saw competitors return to Paris, for a distance of 13,379 km. The Expedition Trophy , first held in 2005, runs from Murmansk to Vladivostok, for a total distance of 12,500 km. The 1908 New York to Paris Race covered

400-509: A distance of over 16,000 km, taking 169 days from February 12 to July 30. In the beginning of formalised endurance racing, the races tended to be for sports cars while the Grand Prix cars of the era began to evolve into the open wheel racing cars of today and ran over shorter distances. Over time sports cars began to evolve away from their roots as a production based alternative to pure-bred racing machines of Grand Prix cars, which led to

450-693: A loop race starting and finishing in Ensenada. The Intercontinental GT Challenge is world sports car racing endurance series run by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation , like the GTWCEEC. Its rule set is similar to GTWCEEC, although it is centred on internationally renowned endurance races that are often part of multiple championships, such as the Bathurst 12 Hours and the Nürburgring 24 Hours , which belong to

500-541: A real-time simulation of 24 hour events. In the 2018 stealth video game Hitman 2 , a level takes place amidst an endurance race in Miami, Florida , with a target being a racer in the event. In the early days of endurance racing cars and motorcycles raced side by side, but the two were soon separated. The most notable motorcycle endurance race was the Bol d'Or , first run on the circuit of Vaujours , near Paris in 1922. Only one rider

550-604: Is dependent on the driver's endurance abilities, length of the race, or even the rules for each event. Coppa Florio was an Italian car race started in 1900, and renamed in 1905 when Vincenzo Florio offered the initial 50 000 Lira and a cup designed by Polak of Paris. The Brescia race visited the route Brescia-Cremona-Mantova-Brescia. In 1908, the race used the Circuito di Bologna: Bologna-Castelfranco Emilia-Sant'Agata Bolognese-San Giovanni in Persiceto-Bologna. Since 1914 most of

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600-589: Is of greater importance than all out speed. As well as the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans race for automobiles there is also a 24 hours event for karts which takes place at the kart circuit Alain Prost at Le Mans, France. This race has taken place since 1986 and its winners list include four times Champ Car champion Sébastien Bourdais (in 1996). 24 Heures Motonautiques de Rouen - take place on the Seine River 24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona , also known as

650-408: Is one of the most prestigious off-road races in the world. The race was founded by Ed Pearlman in 1967 and is sanctioned by SCORE International . The Baja 1000 allows various types of vehicles and classes to compete on the same course at the same time. The course has remained relatively the same over the years, with about every event being either a point-to-point race from Ensenada to La Paz , or

700-508: Is related to the former Japan Le Mans Challenge that turned into the older Asian Le Mans Series (which was cancelled after one season). The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup (GTWCEEC) is a European sports car racing endurance series run by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation . It is similar to the ELMS, but only uses performance-balanced GT3 cars instead of prototypes and holds generally shorter races, although some races are exceptions, such as

750-597: Is the first major automobile race of the year in North America. The race is sanctioned by IMSA and is the first race of the season for the IMSA SportsCar Championship . The race has borne the names of several sponsors over the years. Since 1992, the Rolex Watch Company has been the title sponsor of the race, replacing Sunbank , which replaced Pepsi in 1984. Winning drivers of all classes receive

800-492: The 24 Hours of Spa , which the series is centred on. One of the key emphases of the series is being friendly for amateur and gentlemen drivers, and there are numerous non-pro classes in addition to the premier GT3 Pro class. The series began in 2011 and saw increased involvement in 2012 and 2013 . The Baja 1000 is an annual Mexican off-road motorsport endurance race held on the Baja California Peninsula . It

850-525: The GT World Challenge Australia and Nurburgring Langstrecken-Serie championships respectively. Endurance motor racing has proven a popular subject for depiction in video games, and on film. The Lee H. Katzin film Le Mans , starring Steve McQueen , used real race footage, and enjoys cult status. The 1986 arcade game WEC Le Mans was the first to portray endurance racing in a videogame, while Gran Turismo 4 and 5 extended this to

900-743: The Porsche 996 is used, instead of the usual RS/RSR racing versions. Recent Daytona entries also include BMW M3s and M6s , Porsche 911s , Chevy Camaros and Corvettes , Mazda RX-8s , Pontiac GTO.Rs , and Ferrari F430 Challenges . The Audi R8 and the Ferrari 458 Italia debuted in the 50th anniversary of the race in 2012. From the era of the IMSA GTO and GTU until the 2015 rule changes, spaceframe cars clad in lookalike body panels to compete in GT (the new BMW M6, Chevrolet Camaro, and Mazda RX-8). These rules are similar to

950-581: The Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida . It is run on the Sports Car Course layout , a 3.56-mile (5.73 km) combined road course that uses most of the tri-oval plus an infield road course. Held on the last weekend of January or first weekend of February as part of Speedweeks , it

1000-427: The 1968 24 Hours. After the car of Gerhard Mitter had a big crash caused by tire failure in the banking, his teammate Rolf Stommelen supported the car of Vic Elford and Jochen Neerpasch . When the car of the longtime leaders Jo Siffert and Hans Herrmann dropped to second due to a technical problem, these two also joined the new leaders while continuing with their car. So Porsche managed to put 5 of 8 drivers on

1050-726: The Coppa Florio was co-organized with the Targa Florio near Palermo , Sicilia, running four or five laps, 108 km each. The Targa Florio was an open road endurance automobile race founded in 1906- the track length of the last decades was limited to the 72 kilometres of the Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie, which was lapped 11 times. The Mille Miglia was an open-road endurance race which took place in Italy 24 times from 1927 to 1957. The world's first organized 24-hour automobile race event

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1100-736: The GTLM class, using LM GTE cars, similar to the WEC. In 2022 the GTLM class was replaced by GTD Pro, using the same cars as GTD. A single GTLM car, the Corvette C8.R, was also permitted to compete in the class with its performance adjusted to the GTD cars. The 2013 race was the first and only year for the GX class. Six cars started in the event. The class consisted of purpose built production Porsche Cayman S and Mazda 6 racecars. Mazda debuted their first diesel racecar there which

1150-513: The WSCC and ELMS/AsLMS below. The series features both Le Mans Prototypes and GT cars. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is included as a feature race, while the other races are 6 hours long and take place in countries all over the world such as Bahrain, Brazil, Japan, and the United States. The WEC is considered a revival of the defunct World Sportscar Championship which ended in 1992. An early championship

1200-541: The World Endurance Championship in 2012, the series has dropped LMP1 and now features LMP2 as its premier category, in addition to LMP3 and GT categories. The Asian Le Mans Series (AsLMS) is an Asian sports car racing series run by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). It uses the same car categories and regulations as the ELMS, and also provides automatic entries to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The series

1250-510: The car for a specific number of hours. Most often, the fourth driver in all classes is a Daytona-only professional driver of renown that most often has won a major professional championship, such as Scott Dixon , Jeff Gordon , Fernando Alonso , Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Busch . Unlike the Le Mans event, the Daytona race is conducted entirely over a closed course within the speedway arena without

1300-535: The car's simple aerodynamics reduce the development and testing costs. The DPs began racing in 2003 with six cars in the race. Specialist chassis makers like Riley , Dallara , and Lola provide the DP cars for the teams and the engines are branded under the names of major car companies like Cadillac , Lexus , Ford , BMW , and Porsche . 2017 saw the introduction of the DPi prototypes. These cars were based on LMP2 chassis with

1350-470: The center of the podium, plus Jo Schlesser and Joe Buzzetta finishing in third place, with only Mitter being left out. Lola finished 1–2 in the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona. The winning car was the Penske Lola T70 -Chevrolet of Mark Donohue and Chuck Parsons . Few spectators witnessed the achievement as Motor Sport reported: "The Daytona 24-Hour race draws a very small crowd, as can be seen from

1400-504: The classic 1000 km distance of races at Nürburgring , Spa and Monza . The distance amounted to roughly half of the distance the 24 Hours of Le Mans winners covered at the time, and was similar in length to the 12 Hours of Sebring , which was also held in Florida in March. Starting in 1966, the Daytona race was extended to the same 24-hour length as Le Mans. The first 24 Hour event in 1966

1450-446: The creation of GT and touring car racing classes, and these classes continued to embrace the endurance format. Multiple drivers per car was an early adaptation as the rigors of endurance racing quickly overcome the abilities of most racing drivers to compete solo, although solo attempts on 24 hour races like Le Mans would continue into the 1950s. The various endurance formats were appealing to manufacturers, not only as alternatives to

1500-520: The empty stands in the background." 1970 saw the race with drivers strapped into their cars, and at the start, drove away. Since 1971, races begin with rolling starts. In 1972, because of an FIA rule, the race was shortened to six hours, while the energy crisis led to the cancellation altogether in 1974. The Sports Car Club of America sanctioning was replaced by the International Motor Sports Association in 1975. In 1982

1550-648: The establishment of several endurance racing series — thereby giving teams the opportunity of running their cars in Championship events throughout the year. The FIA World Endurance Championship is an international sports car racing series organized by both the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It supeceded the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup , run in 2010 and 2011, and uses similar rules to

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1600-537: The expense of Grand Prix racing, but also because of its increased relevance to road going models. In automobile endurance racing, three events have come to form a Triple Crown. They are considered three of the most challenging endurance races over the decades: the 24 Hours of Daytona , 12 Hours of Sebring , and 24 Hours of Le Mans . Strong spectator figures, media interest and television coverage of endurance racing's Triple Crown events ( 24 Hours of Daytona , 12 Hours of Sebring , and 24 Hours of Le Mans ) has led to

1650-614: The factory with an engine built for racing. The first 24-hour race to take place at a dedicated motorsport venue was at Brooklands in England, eleven days after its opening in 1907. This incurred the wrath of local residents and would lead to the Double Twelve race. This format meant the race took place for 12 hours each between 8 am to 8 pm and between it, the cars were locked up overnight to prevent maintenance work from being performed on them. The 2001 Dakar Rally saw competitors cover

1700-413: The finish line one last time in order to finish after the 24 hours and be listed with a finishing distance, rather than dismissed with DNF (did not finish). This was the case in the initial 1962 Daytona Continental (then 3 hours), in which Dan Gurney 's Lotus 19 had established a lengthy lead when the engine failed with just minutes remaining. Gurney stopped the car at the top of the banking, just short of

1750-447: The finish line. When the three hours had elapsed, Gurney simply cranked the steering wheel to the left (toward the bottom of the banking) and let gravity pull the car across the line, to not only salvage a finishing position, but actually win the race. This led to the international rule requiring a car to cross the line under its own power in order to be classified. In 1964, the event was expanded to 2,000 km (1,240 mi), doubling

1800-739: The inaugural FIM Endurance Cup initially made up of four races, the Thruxton 500 , Montjuich , Warsage , and the Bol d'Or . The popularity of motorcycle endurance racing increased in the 1970s with the arrival of four-cylinder machines from Japan. In 1976 the FIM Endurance Cup became the European Championship and in 1980 a World Championship . Motorcycle endurance classics: Endurance races last for an extended period, ranging from 30 minutes up to 24 hours or more, for one or more drivers. In general, consistency, reliability, and pit strategy

1850-451: The old European Le Mans Series which was created by IMSA and the ACO, but only ran in 2001. LMS champions and runners-up in all four categories receive an automatic entry to the following year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. All races used to be 6 hours long, but the format was changed to 3 hours in 2013 to differentiate it further from the WEC; currently, it has been reextended to 4 hours. With the debut of

1900-485: The old GTO specification, but with more restrictions. The intent of spaceframe cars is to allow teams to save money, especially after crashes, where teams can rebuild the cars for the next race at a much lower cost, or even redevelop cars, instead of having to write off an entire car after a crash or at the end of a year. Starting in 2014 the GT Daytona class was restricted exclusively to Group GT3 cars. Alongside this came

1950-585: The race continued on as part of the IMSA GT Championship instead of WSC . In 2014 , the race saw a dramatic crash involving Memo Gidley who was driving the pole-sitter DP and Matteo Malucelli, an amateur driver in a Ferrari 458 of the GTD category that has never won a race in North American Endurance . At the time of the impact, Malucelli was driving at less than 30 mph and keeping on the track while cars were passing him at 150 mph. Memo, who

2000-492: The race, became the first women's teams to finish an international-standard 24-hour race. After having lost in 1966 at Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans to the Fords, the Ferrari P series prototypes staged a 1–2–3 side-by-side parade finish at the banked finish line in 1967. The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 road car was given the unofficial name Ferrari Daytona in celebration of this victory. Porsche repeated this show in their 1–2–3 win in

2050-458: The stadium lights are turned on only to a level of 20%, similar to the stadium lighting setup at Le Mans, with brighter lights around the pit straight, and decent lighting similar to street lights around the circuit. After several ownership changes at IMSA which changed the direction the organization followed, it was decided by the 1990s that the Daytona event would align with the Grand-Am series,

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2100-403: The unique Daytona Prototypes and Daytona-spec GT cars. The series is considered to be the successor of the defunct IMSA GT Championship as well as the American Le Mans Series and Rolex Sports Car Series that merged to form it. The European Le Mans Series (ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series run by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The ELMS is seen as a rebirth of

2150-417: The use of any public streets. Most parts of the steep banking are included, interrupted with a chicane on the back straight and a sweeping, fast infield section which includes two hairpins. Unlike Le Mans, the race is held in wintertime, when nights are at their longest. There are lights installed around the circuit for night racing, although the infield section is still not as well-lit as the main oval. However,

2200-423: Was a factory Porsche driver at the time, but the 1600-cc Porsche 718 was considered too small and slow for what amounted to a sprint race on a very fast course. In the past, a car had to cross the finish line after 24 hours to be classified, which led to dramatic scenes where damaged cars waited in the pits or on the edge of the track close to the finish line for hours, then restarted their engines and crawled across

2250-527: Was held on a 1-mile oval track at Driving Park , Columbus, Ohio on July 3–4, 1905. Beginning on the afternoon of July 3, four cars from Frayer-Miller , Pope-Toledo , Peerless and White Steamer raced for a $ 500 silver trophy. The winning Pope-Toledo car covered 828.5 miles. A protest was filed by the Frayer-Miller and Peerless teams, alleging the Pope-Toledo was not owned by the driver, instead sent from

2300-581: Was permitted per bike and there was no stopping other than for refuelling. Motorcycle endurance racing began to expand after the second World War as new races began to emerge, among them the 24 Hour Race in Warsage , Belgium in 1951, the 24 Hours of Montjuïc in Barcelona in 1957, 24 hours in Monza , Italy in 1959, and the Thruxton 500 mile endurance race at Thruxton , Hampshire , England in 1960. 1960 also saw

2350-644: Was side by side to another car couldn't have seen him and impacted front first. The race was subsequently red-flagged. Both drivers survived. The regular teams were expanded to three drivers in the 1970s. Nowadays, four drivers compete typically because of the longer night driving. In the professional-based DPi Prototype and ACO GTE classes, all four drivers are usually professionals. In the ACO LMP2 and SRO Group GT3-based classes, many of these additional drivers are known as "amateur drivers," under current FIA specifications. Amateur drivers are sportsman drivers that have built

2400-635: Was the Australian Endurance Championship , held since 1981. The WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (WSCC) is a US sports car racing series organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). The season begins with the 24 Hours of Daytona , traditionally held in the last weekend of January or the first weekend of February. There then follows a further 12 races, including the famed 12 Hours of Sebring , 6 Hours of Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans . The WSCC includes Le Mans Prototypes and Le Mans-spec GT cars and formerly featured

2450-459: Was the first time a diesel fuel racecar ever started at the Daytona 24. Throughout the race the Caymans were dominant, while all three Mazdas suffered premature engine failure and retired from the race. By a 9 lap lead, the #16 Napleton Porsche Cayman, driven by David Donohue , was the GX winner. Porsche has the most overall victories of any manufacturer with 23, scored by various models, including

2500-484: Was won by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby driving a Ford Mk. II . Motor Sport reported: "For their first 24-hour race the basic organization was good, but the various officials in many cases were out of touch, childish and lacked the professional touch which one now finds at Watkins Glen ." 1966 also saw Suzy Dietrich enter the 24 Hours event, driving a Sunbeam Alpine with Janet Guthrie and Donna Mae Mims . The trio finished 32nd and, along with another women's team in

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