Don Panoz is an inventive guy. He’s responsible for the nicotine patch. And then he took the (considerable amount of) money from that and started a winery AND a sportscar company. And then after that, he started The American Le Mans Series (the ALMS) to bring big-time sportscar racing back to America and more in alignment with world-wide racing trends, and even ended up racing his own cars, with luminaries such as Mario Andretti behind the wheel, and now he’s talking about getting BACK into the top rung of sportscar racing.
Oh, and he’s going to do it using algae butanol as fuel.
At last weekend’s Sebring 12 hours (which saw a Panoz was third in the GT2 class following a hard-fought battle with one of Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Porsches late in the race) Dr. Panoz said that his sportscar company is considering a return to the premier LMP1 prototype category of ALMS competition. Details are so far scant, but Autoweek says “it is understood” that the car would use a Chevy engine and may burn butanol produced from algae. OK, that’s pretty damn bitchin’.
“We are looking at something that has never been done before, something that would be good for sports car racing, good for Le Mans and good for us,” Panoz said. Amen brother! Amen!
This year, the ALMS has turned into some sort of alt-fuel Mecca. Not only did Audi run is brand new R-15 TDi diesel racer, but Peugeot brought over their 908 HGI diesel to compete fro top honors, but Chevy is racing their ‘Vettes on E85 ethanol, and there was also some sort of race category for overall greenness. That last part I never quite cottoned, to, but it was sort of like the old Index Of Efficiency prize the Automobile Club de l’Ouest used to hand out back in the 60s – some sort of fuel burned divided my miles travels factored by BTUs or some such. Turns out in that class, the Vettes were beating everybody.
Anyway, so Dr. Don is thinking about getting back in at the top, in the same class that Audi & Peugeot are running.
Scott Atherton, American Le Mans Series CEO told Green Fuels Forecast that the series is interested in bringing a fourth fuel to the grid, in this case, that would be butanol-based fuel. Butanol is like ethanol, it’s an alcohol, but it has two carbon atoms instead of four. It also contains more energy per given volume than ethanol and does not require engine modifications. The lack of modifications is key, because Atherton said any alt fuels used in the series must be commercially viable.
“We don’t want to throw another alternative onto the list just for the sake of having another. If it’s determined that the infrastructure just isn’t there or the industry isn’t planning to evolve in that direction, it would be as I said very difficult for us to justify that,” Atherton told Green Fuels Forecast
At the moment Don Panoz isn’t saying when the new car might show up on track, but Autoweek says it could compete in the season’s final race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Source: Wired
Photo from Flickr user Dave Hamster
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