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How Panoz transformed sportscar racing

Don Panoz, who died this week, arrived in motorsport with an apparently crazy GT car and ended up transforming sportscar racing and setting the template for its 2000s resurgence

Some say Don Panoz was a visionary. That could well be true, though I prefer to think of him as an innovator, someone who liked to think outside the box. And someone who liked to defy convention, and positively revelled in it.

But Panoz certainly did have a vision for sportscar racing in North America and beyond, and we should be thankful for that. His creation of the American Le Mans Series for the 1999 season was the greatest achievement of his 20-odd year involvement in motorsport, one that began after his 60th birthday.

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.