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The 24 Hours of Le Mans set a new attendance record this year with 263,500 spectators. To put the crowd into perspective, more people watched the famed endurance race in person than the Super Bowl, NCAA College Football Playoff Championship and The Masters –combined.

Michelin provided tires for 39 of the 55 cars on the track. The Michelin Man could also be found on the scoring tower, on a set of bleachers, painted along the concrete on the length of the pit lane and the caps of many fans in attendance. This year’s overall winner, the Porsche #19 919 hybrid P1 prototype, logged 395 laps. That is more than 3,340 miles, equivalent to driving from Greenville, S.C., to Los Angeles and nearly halfway back. Michelin cars finished 1st through 8th and won the LM P1 (Prototype), LM GTE Pro (Sports cars) and LM GTE Am classifications. The LM P1 class win was the 18th consecutive for Michelin-supported teams and the 24th of all time.

Winning the GTE Pro division in improbable fashion was the #64 Corvette. The team had to go it alone, so to speak, when the sister car #63 was wrecked in Thursday’s night practice/qualifying session. Corvette was the only U.S. based factory team competing this year, something that will change next year with the exciting announcement that Ford will be fielding at least two GT cars in the 2016 race. While the race may sound like all fun, the event is serious business for Michelin’s 50 tire fitters, 25 technical team advisers and 15 engineers who support the teams – many of whom are NA employees.

The Michelin tire compound, set up as their home away from home, includes 15 semi-trailer trucks and 7,000 tires. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the ultimate testing ground for Michelin, where new technologies for durability, wear life, traction, and response, are developed and studied in a relentless effort to make the best, better. The passion from track-to-street quickly yields technology transfer from the most advanced vehicles in the world, to the vehicles our consumers drive every day.

Call, click or stop in to Bastian today to purchase your own set of Michelin tires!  http://www.bastiantire.com/tires/view/brand/b/19.aspx