Race of a Thousand Years

The 2000 Race of a Thousand Years was an endurance race and the final round of the 2000 American Le Mans Series season. It was run on the Adelaide Street Circuit in Australia on New Year's Eve, 31 December 2000. The Race of a Thousand Years was intended to be run for 1000 kilometers but was stopped short due to time constraints, two hours before midnight, after completing 850 kilometers.

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 amount 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 first in a nine year contract, but was abandoned after only one. Over 135,000 fans attended the race.

Official results

Class winners in bold.

† – #2 Panoz was disqualified for allowing an unassigned driver, Klaus Graf, to drive the car during the race.

Statistics

• Pole Position – Rinaldo Capello – #77 Audi Sport North America – 1:23.804
• Fastest Lap – Allan McNish – #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
• Race results