It began nine months ago with the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and ended Saturday night at picturesque Road Atlanta in the north Georgia hamlet of Braselton as IMSA threw the checkered flag on its 2024 WeatherTech Championship season.

Sports-car racing at the highest level is a different ballgame, and Saturday, like season finales before, brought the ultimate example.

One race: 12 potential winners.

IMSA's top series features four classes of cars, and each of those four classes was racing for a trophy in the 10-hour Petit Le Mans, but also for a season-long championship as well as a carved-out championship within that championship — the Michelin Endurance Cup.

Let’s sort it out …

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Saturday’s 10-hour Petit Le Mans

Chip Ganassi Racing and Cadillac are ending their IMSA relationship after four seasons, and Ganassi is taking away the ultimate parting gift: a trophy.

Ganassi’s No. 01 Cadillac GT Prototype fell two laps down at one point Saturday but rallied back to the lead lap with four hours left.

There were just 15 minutes remaining when Dutch racer Renger van der Zande, piloting the No. 01, passed Nick Tandy for the lead and held it, finishing nearly 3 seconds in front at the 10-hour checkers — all while van der Zande was fiddling with flickering headlights that brought the possibility of being black-flagged.

"Pretty scary," he said afterward.

IndyCar legend Scott Dixon and Sebastien Bourdais were co-driving the No. 01 Cadillac with van der Zande. The team also won earlier this season at Long Beach.

Tandy was driving Roger Penske’s No. 6 Porsche prototype that finished second. The Penske team didn’t leave empty-handed, however (more on that below).

Saturday’s other IMSA class winners at Road Atlanta

Le Mans Prototype 2: Mikkel Jensen, co-driving the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA with Hunter McElrae and Steven Thomas, finished 17 seconds in front for the Road Atlanta win in the LMP2 class.

GTD Pro: Lamborghini got the class win thanks to the No. 19 Iron Lynx team. Jordan Pepper was just 2.3 seconds clear of the No. 62 Ferrari at the checkers. Pepper was co-driving with Mirko Bortolotti and Franck Perera.

GTD: Conquest Racing, in the No. 34 Ferrari, won the GTD class with drivers Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Albert Costa Balboa and Manny Franco.

IMSA’s season-long WeatherTech champs

GT Prototype: While Roger Penske’s No. 6 Porsche prototype finished a close second Saturday night, his No. 7 squad captured the season-long GTP championship. The No. 7 team began its season with a win at Daytona’s Rolex 24, the series’ top single-race achievement, and ended it with the overall series honors.

The championship ride was shared by Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron all season, with Matt Campbell joining for the five endurance races. The team, which finished third Saturday night, had two wins and seven podiums in 10 events this season.

“Just incredible the way we pulled it off and the whole way we dictated the season,” Nasr told the NBC television audience afterward.

Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2): Mathiasen Motorsports’ No 52 entry won the season-long race with co-drivers Nick Boulle and Tom Dillman. Joined by Jakub Smiechowski at Road Atlanta, they finished fourth in class Saturday.

GTD Pro: The tightest points race of the season went to the No. 77 Porsche 911 by just four points. That team finished five laps off the pace Saturday, 11th in class, but the championship was barely saved when the No. 23 Aston Martin, fielded by Heart of Racing, failed to move from third to second place in the late stages Saturday night.

GTD: The No. 57 Mercedes-AMG only managed an eighth-place class showing at Road Atlanta, but its closest pursuers faltered to leave the championship to the Winward Racing team.

Michelin Endurance Cup champs

There’s a championship within the championship in IMSA sports-car racing. Five races on the schedule are marathons of varying lengths and comprise the sanctioning body’s Michelin Endurance Cup.

Those races include Daytona (24 hours), Sebring (12), Watkins Glen (6), Indianapolis (6) and Road Atlanta (10).

That championship was obviously also decided Saturday night in Braselton. No surprise, the same No. 7 Penske team that won the overall GTP championship also captured the MEC. The team had two wins and two third-place finishes in the five marathons.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: IMSA winners, champs all around at Road Atlanta. Ganassi, Penske win