| The American Le Mans Series (ALMS), founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Don Panoz, is a world-class sports car endurance series of racing events, modelled on the prestigious Le Mans 24 hour race.
The Series holds 10 North American events, seven of which 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 season closes 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 gruelling 10-hour/1,000-mile event held in autumn.
Series races are run under the ACO rules, with the events sanctioned and conducted by International Sports Association (IMSA). Teams that regularly compete in ALMS events receive special consideration in the selection of the prestigious field for the Le Mans 24 hour race.
For six of the past seven years the overall winning team in the Le Mans 24 hour race 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.
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