The immediate challenge for Champ Car, however, is to put on a trio of reliable and competitive, back-to-back-to-back street races in Las Vegas, Long Beach and Houston over the next three weeks. The trio of street races is sure to be a test both for the teams and for Panoz, who have to produce all the components and pieces required to get a representative number of cars to the chequered flag in each race.
Building, and then developing, the fleet of DP01s into reliable and traceable cars has been a monumental task. The work list continued as the teams loaded up and headed out to Las Vegas for the season-opener. Last week, for example, everyone's reworked underbodies had been shipped back to them from Panoz, but all the teams were still awaiting the arrival of their refuelling hardware and systems.
"It's bad, but it's not a disaster," said team owner Derrick Walker, "I've seen worse, and we'll make it happen. That's what we do."
Forsythe Racing's veteran team boss Neil Micklewright worked for Ensign, Hesketh and Lotus
F1 teams in his formative days, where he learned about applying creative ideas in practical and effective ways. Micklewright has lived and worked in the United States the past 23 years, starting with the Bignotti-Cotter CART team, then joining Doug Shierson Racing, where he rose to become team manager. He joined Jerry Forsythe's team in 1994 as vice-president of operations and continues 13 years later in the same role. Micklewright is pleased to see that all the basic elements of the new Panoz Champ car are in good order so that the DP01 is capable of producing record-setting lap times as it did at Laguna Seca last month.
"The car is instantly quick," he said, "That part is very good. There's no problem with the basic package. The balance is there and it's a pretty good car. It's clearly quicker than the Lola by a not insubstantial amount. It seems as though we're becoming more and more reliable as the first race rushes up to us. So, hopefully, it'll be a good weekend."
