The tenth running of the Petit Le Mans took place on Saturday and along with celebrating a decade of the American Le Mans Series it also marked the debut of the ALMS Green Challenge. For those of you that TIVO'ed the race you can come back later. The rest of you can follow the jump to see who won.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]

Here at the Detroit Grand Prix today, Corsa Motorsports announced their intention to debut a hybrid powered sports car in the LMP1 class at the Petit Le Mans in October. Corsa will be using a chassis developed by Zytek with an E10/electric hybrid powertrain. The 10-hour race at Road Atlanta on October 4 will also mark the debut of the Green Challenge were the teams will be judged on their fuel consumption and overall environmental impact. Corsa hopes to make a good showing as part of the Green Challenge.

Zytek has designed a new E10-fueled 4.5L V8 that will be paired up with a three phase induction motor and six speed gear box. The car will feature regenerative braking with energy stored in a lithium ion battery provided by Continental Automotive. Track testing of the car started in July at the Donington Park track in the UK and the car will soon be shipped to the U.S. for its race debut. Corsa is planning to run the entire 2009 ALMS season with the new car.

[Source: American Le Mans Series]

The Detroit Grand Prix is back at the city's Belle Isle Park this Labor Day weekend and Saturday's activities will be dominated by the Detroit Sports Car Challenge. The Sports Car Challenge is the 9th race of the 2008 American Le Mans Series. We spoke to ALMS President Scott Atherton this morning about the series' green racing efforts. According to Atherton, the response to the Green Challenge that will debut at the Petit Le Mans at the beginning of October has been outstanding. The Peugeot 908s are coming back to challenge the Audi R10s again in the top dog ALMS class. The big news is yet to come though. The Green Challenge will run throughout the season starting in 2009. Atherton revealed that at least two manufacturers that are not currently involved in ALMS are seriously looking at joining the series specifically because of the Green Challenge. Unfortunately he wouldn't say who those manufacturers are but if I had to guess, I'd say Toyota and Nissan would be the top candidates.

When the Green Challenge was first announced at the Detroit Auto Show last year, Honda's John Mendel told us that that Acura would be looking at alternative powertrain options in the future as well. The Acura team will be holding a press conference tomorrow to discuss their future ALMS plans. We'll be there to let you know what they say. Can you say Acura diesel?

[Source: American Le Mans Series]

At the beginning of the year we brought you initial news of the planned Green Challenge being implemented by the organizers of the American Le Mans Series. The announcement was made at the Detroit Motor Show, however details of how the initiative – co-sponsored by the Energy Department, the EPA and SAE International – would play out were still being worked on at the time.

The series has now announced that the Green Challenge will kick off this coming October at the "Petit Le Mans" race at Road Atlanta. ALMS race cars running on clean diesel, E10 ethanol or cellulosic E85 will be ranked by how much fossil fuels they use and how many emissions they produce over the course of the race distance. The vehicles which go the farthest on the least with the least impact will receive the lowest scores (i.e. the highest ranking), with winners announced in both the prototype and GT classes. Although only the one race will feature the Green Challenge component this season, in 2009 the initiative will carry through the entire calendar.

[Source: AutoWeek]

They say we Americans love a good challenge, so in the face of global warming Slate collaborated with Treehugger to come up with the Slate Green Challenge. The idea is that you take a short quiz which determines your annual carbon footprint and then for the next eight weeks, the nation goes on a carbon diet with the end goal of reducing carbon emissions from individuals by 20 percent. The average for a U.S. citizen is 44,312 lbs.

I signed up immediately after reading the press release. It just takes a few minutes out of your busy day to take the initial quiz. After that, you'll be directed towards week 1's topic: transportation. The page offers some tips on saving gas and suggestions for air travel such as purchasing carbon offsets through companies like TerraPass or Native Energy. Make sure to check it out and keep in mind that the first 500 people to complete the challenge will receive a free Slate/Treehugger Green Challenge t-shirt.

[Source: Slate]