The Austin-Healey dinner went very well with Don Panoz. Very low-key
guy. Freely admits he was ignorant of car racing up to 4 years ago
and still has a lot to learn. We had about 50 people show, of varied
backgrounds, so I couldn't totally hog the Q&A session. Here are some
interesting things (to me, anyway). Panoz went racing to establish a
"race heritage" for his son Danny's car company. Andy Evans and crew
saw to it that race rules were changed several races running
(composite pads, then steel pads, then composite pads, and
ultimately, 350 lbs of penalty weight). So, that PO'd him and he
decided to go down the path he's taken.
The engine is in the front because when he went to Reynard to have
them build him a car, he told them to put it in the front. He
literally "didn't know any better." Reynard was happy to take the
money and not burden him with "details". Ullmer still kids him about
it. Panoz' reply is that if they had made it mid-engined, he guesses
that they'd have beaten Audi at every race.
They lost the Texas race because they needed a splash. They had
gotten out of fueling sequence because Magnussen got a neck spasm and
had to pit early. The LMP07s are being sold to a couple of companies,
one of whom is developing a turbo engine package. Panoz is not at
liberty say whether they will race as LMP900 or LMP675.
So they are sticking with the LMP1, especially as the ACO are making
big changes in '04. They're making a lot of changes to the aero and
engine package. Panoz thinks they'll pick up 5 secs at Le Mans.
As you know, they've signed Brabham and Magnussen for 3 yrs. He's
very, very happy about that. As for car number 2, he wants an all
American team. Said is out, certainly for this year. Other drivers
include the other Andretti son, Yue(?), Terry Borcheller, Donohue,
and Gunnar Jeanette (!) who tests for Panoz starting tomorrow
morning. There were a couple of other candidates, but they slip my
mind. Panoz says that they really want to get young Americans.
CART will not be at a Panoz track any time soon. He says everytime
they talk, their fee goes up. Started at 1.4 million and is now 2.4
million and CART refuses to do the marketing. He says he's excited
about hosting CART events, but only if it makes sense.
BTW, he arrived solo in a hot blue Esperante. Very nice looking,
sounds GREAT! He left early to have another (late) dinner with his
wife. As he says, "I don't know much about cars, but I like to drive
fast, gorgeous machinery!"
The only thing I didn't get to was the ELMS question. Sorry, maybe next time.
Finally, this is from memory, so don't make any business plans based on this!
--
__________________________________________________
Jeffrey H. Boatright, PhD
Assistant Professor, Emory Eye Center, Atlanta, GA
Senior Editor, Molecular Vision
<http://www.molvis.org/molvis>
<mailto: jboatri@emory.edu>
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