2000 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 was run on the full 3.780 km (2.349 mi) Grand Prix circuit used by Formula One for the Australian Grand Prix between 1985-1995, rather than the shorter 3.219 km (2.012 mi) V8 Supercars version of the circuit used since 1998. The Race of a Thousand Years was intended to be run for 1000 kilometres but was stopped short due to time constraints, two hours before midnight, after completing 850 kilometres.

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 meeting, with almost 70,000 of them in attendance on race day.

By completing the first 25 laps (and in the lead), Allan McNish became the 2000 American Le Mans Series LMP Drivers' Champion. McNish and team mate Rinaldo Capello completed 225 laps in their Audi Sport North America R8. Australian driver Brad Jones had also qualified the R8 but did not drive in the race. Jones was on stand-by for Scottish driver McNish who had injured his back a few days before the race while putting on his Kilt for a photo shoot. The GTS class was won by Olivier Beretta, Karl Wendlinger and Dominique Dupuy who piloted their Team Oreca Viper to 3rd outright while finishing 5th outright were the GT class winners Dirk Müller and Lucas Luhr in their Dick Barbour Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R.

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