Next weekend’s Motul Petit Le Mans concludes the championship portion of the 2019 IMSA season, and IMSA’s 50th anniversary celebration. It also caps off Michelin’s first full year as Official Tire of IMSA in a long-term partnership.

Among the three IMSA series Michelin participates in, there are 96 cars entered at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Here is the series breakdown:

• WeatherTech SportsCar Championship: 34 (11 DPi, 2 LMP2, 9 GTLM, 12 GTD)
• MICHELIN Pilot Challenge: 39 (25 GS, 14 TCR)
• Prototype Challenge: 23 (LMP3)

Those 96 cars will feature 220 drivers. That’s spread with 102 in WeatherTech, 78 in Pilot Challenge and 40 in Prototype Challenge.

CAR COUNT BY EVENT

For the season, here is the Michelin car count by event:

• ROAR/Rolex 24: 115 (47 WeatherTech Championship, 49 Pilot Challenge, 19 Prototype Challenge)
• SuperSebring: 137 of 140 (38 WeatherTech, 43 Pilot, 25 Prototype, 31 of 34 FIA World Endurance Championship)
• Long Beach: 19 (WeatherTech)
• Mid-Ohio: 96 (36 WeatherTech, 37 Pilot, 23 Prototype)
• Detroit: 23 (WeatherTech)
• Watkins Glen: 74 (37 WeatherTech, 37 Pilot)
• CTMP: 88 (33 WeatherTech, 36 Pilot, 19 Prototype)
• Lime Rock: 53 (21 WeatherTech, 32 Pilot)
• Road America: 68 (35 WeatherTech, 33 Pilot)
• VIR: 81 (21 WeatherTech, 37 Pilot, 23 Prototype)
• Monterey: 67 (32 WeatherTech, 35 Pilot)
• Michelin Raceway: 96 anticipated (34 WeatherTech, 39 Pilot, 23 Prototype)

Last year, Michelin worked with eight cars at 11 events, with a ninth car present for three weekends, in one WeatherTech Championship class: the open-tire GT Le Mans category. That totals 91 cars entered across 11 race weekends. That makes an average of 8.3 cars per race weekend supplied by Michelin.

This year, save for the two WeatherTech-only street course races with just two of the four WeatherTech classes racing, there have been at least 50-plus cars entered. More frequently, that number is in the high 60s to nearly 100, and twice, it’s been over 100.

All told, Michelin has supplied 917 entries in IMSA in the 2019 season: an order of magnitude 10 times greater than a year ago. On average, that’s 76.4 cars per weekend.

So multiply that tenfold leap in car count to note the number of sets and personnel, and that puts it into perspective just how big this year’s leap has been.

PETIT ENTRY NUGGETS

• Of the 34 cars entered for Motul Petit Le Mans, a handful of teams return to action after several races away.
• Juncos Racing Cadillac (DPi) and Risi Competizione Ferrari (GT Le Mans) bring those class totals up to 11 and 9 cars, respectively. Risi hasn’t raced in IMSA since Daytona in January; Juncos has rebuilt a chassis after an incident in Canada in July.
• The GTD class sees the Montaplast by Land Audi and Precision Performance Lamborghini teams back for the first time since Watkins Glen in late June.
• Park Place Porsche drops off with its damaged chassis from Monterey. Compass Racing’s McLaren, as expected, has ended its season following the last WeatherTech Sprint Cup races. No further entries materialized in class.
• There are a handful of new or returning GS cars in the 39-car IMSA MICHELIN Pilot Challenge FOX Factory 120. That includes a pair of Fords from Multimatic Motorsports, a second BMW from Stephen Cameron Racing and a third Aston Martin from Automatic Racing. Atlanta SpeedWerks adds a second TCR car as well to bring that car count up to 14.
• As for most races this year, the IMSA Prototype Challenge has 23 cars.