Panther Racing is returning to the Indy Pro Series for the first time since their championship-winning season in 2003 in partnership with F1 outfit Super Aguri and rookie driver Hideki Mutoh.

Mutoh is charged with replicating the kind of success the team enjoyed with their 2003 driver, Briton Mark Taylor, who won seven races en route to the Firestone Firehawk Cup.

Mutoh impressed team members in several private off-season tests, then showed the rest of the series what he can do when he topped the speed chart on the first day of the open test on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Mutoh came back two days later to rank seventh on the oval.

Mutoh's crewmembers have nicknamed his #55 car 'Godzilla.' The number 5 is pronounced 'go' in Japanese, and the crew referenced a Blue Oyster Cult song that includes the lyrics, 'Go go Godzilla.' The team decorates the Dallara chassis with stuffed Godzilla's while working on it in the garage area.

"As a team, we're very excited to get back into the Indy Pro Series,” says one of the team's many co-owners John Barnes. “We haven't run in the series since we won the championship in 2003, but our driver Hideki Mutoh is an amazing young talent. I'm happy Super Aguri has given us this opportunity and shown the confidence to let us be an integral part of the Honda Formula Dream project. I think we're going to be able to pick up right where we left off."

"First of all I just cannot wait for the upcoming season,” adds Mutoh. “I don't want to concentrate too much on winning the series championship from the start of the season. I want to do my best in each race and show my speed to people. If I could win the series championship by keeping my goal then that would be the best."

Mutoh also has much in common with countryman Kosuke Matsuura, one of Panther Racing's IndyCar Series drivers. Matsuura, the 2004 IndyCar Series Bombardier Learjet Rookie of the Year, won Japan's Formula Dream title in 2000 while Mutoh captured the title in 2003. The two live in the same apartment complex in Indianapolis and spend a lot of time together.