Carl Haas takes over distribution of Panoz race cars and parts

[WMUCarGuy]

Before Carl Haas became better known as Paul Newman's partner in Newman-Haas racing, racers themselves knew Haas as the importer for Lola racecars and parts in North America. In recent years, Haas has continued as a distributor for Hewland gearboxes and has now assumed distribution and service responsibilities for Elan Motorsport Technologies (EMT).

EMT is the race car branch of the Panoz Motor Sport Group and builds machines under the Van Diemen and Panoz brands, including the Panoz Esperante GTLM. EMT products race in Formula Ford, American Le Mans Series and Superleague Formula among others.

Haas' operation will stock and sell EMT's cars and parts around the world and provide trackside service at races to help keep competitors running.

[WMUCarGuy]

Panoz has recently let even more of their staff go and has now sold off the racing side of things. The empire is quickly becoming vastly smaller. Many in the business feel this more or less spells the end of Panoz as a race car manufacturer.

There have even been rumors that Seth Nieman (from Flying Lizard Motorsports) and Tracy Krohn (Krohn Racing) have made offers to buy the physical and intellectual rights to the ALMS, as most of the teams in the series are really not happy with how PMG has been running things as of late.

[WMUCarGuy]

It's also come out that a "secret committee" has been formed by some of the more high profile members of the series (Duncan Dayton, Seth Nieman, Rob Dyson, etc.) to look into finding ways to run the series better and make it a better ROI for both sides of the coin.

[Ackmann]

WOW!!!!. Major news, I dont know quite how to evaluate this. Positive would be my first thought, since it is always better to have someone or group interested in the series.

Major NEWS. So do you think that Panoz Auto Development will just focus on street cars then?

[PanozBob]

Not cool. Well, Maybe it will be better, but I dont like the disconnection of the racing link to our cars.

[LeManns67]

What the hell? This doesnt sound good. Bogus.

[WMUCarGuy]

What the hell? This doesnt sound good. Bogus.

Unfortunately not. Those words were a (rather poorly written) press release from Panoz themselves...

Also, I'm hearing the Don is paying Team PTG to build the Abruzzi race cars, which I'm hearing is likely to be nothing more than a highly updated Esperante and not an all new car like we've thought.

Things are looking pretty bleak on the Panoz front right now...

[Rarity]

I think like our economy, it will be a while, the Panoz Family has quite a few irons in the fire, remember they hold stakes in 3 ailing businesses right now, Real estate/ Development , Car Manufacturing, Track and Event holdings. Of all of these the Economy is holding them back. Remember the words of Three Dog Night, At least there still drinking the Wine, you know they make some mighty fine Wine. On the bright side business in Europe is doing quite well, you know the name is Panoz Auto Development so you might see something over there before we see it in our own backyard...

[Panozguy]

I think like our economy, it will be a while, the Panoz Family has quite a few irons in the fire, remember they hold stakes in 3 ailing businesses right now, Real estate/ Development , Car Manufacturing, Track and Event holdings. Of all of these the Economy is holding them back. Remember the words of Three Dog Night, At least there still drinking the Wine, you know they make some mighty fine Wine. On the bright side business in Europe is doing quite well, you know the name is Panoz Auto Development so you might see something over there before we see it in our own backyard...

Perhaps your right. Not easy to hear though for us in the US.

[LeManns67]

Any new news out there?