1998 Petit Le Mans

The 24 Hours of Le Mans remained a remnant, still competed by a large number of sportscars, but mostly on a single race basis.

The Automobile Club de l'Ouest, wanting to create a new worldwide series, made an agreement with Don Panoz, owner of the Road Atlanta racing course.

IMSA, which normally ran at Road Atlanta during their seasons, agreed to allow a joint race for their series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans competitors.

With a total of 31 entrants, including a large number of European teams, the ACO considered the race a success.

This incident, as well as similar blowover incidents to the BMW V12 LMR during the 2000 Petit Le Mans and the Mercedes-Benz CLR during the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, resulted in Champion Racing not racing a GT1-98 and new regulations introduced in 2004 that changed the cars' geometry and reduced the chance of blow-overs.