Don Panozs Love Affair With Sports Cars: It Started With The BugDon Panoz wasnt always the internationally known, sports car executive type. In fact, for most of his long and accomplished life, the 78-year-old Panoz says he was a casual race fan, at best.Then, in the spring of 1997, something changed quickly, noticeably. Dr. Panoz, successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur, knew an illness when he saw one.His self-diagnosis: I got bitten by the Le Mans bug and infected by the Le Mans virus.This happened with an assist from the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Panoz attended Americas oldest sports car endurance race in 97; that whetted his appetite for more.Before going to Sebring that year that was the fifth race Id been to in my life, so I wasnt a fan of racing and all of that, Panoz said. That race to me was exciting but then, when I went to Le Mans later that yearI saw all the crowds, all the participants, all the pomp and circumstance.And I got to understand what 24 hours of racing really meant, what it really meant to have the different classes of cars and all the people competing. It really just overwhelmed me. It was something Id never imagined. I mean weve all see the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans and I had seen it and was a little bit of a fan of it. But to actually be there in person and see it all up close was overwhelming. And so when I say I caught the virus, what happened was I got infected with endurance sports racing.Which led to Panoz establishing a relationship with the Automobile Club De LOuest (ACO), the organization which creates and runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That relationship in turn led to Panozs founding of the Petit Le Mans, 10-hour endurance event held each October at Road Atlantas famed road course in Braselton, Ga. And that led to founding of the ALMS itself in 1999, which included an ALMS-ACO link that facilitated automatic ALMS entries into the 24 Hours of Le Mans.One thing led to another, and bingo, here we are, Panoz said.Panoz returns to Le Mans this week and will be joined by his new, best friend: GRAND-AM Road Racing founder Jim France. Together, they are leading the merger of the ALMS and the International Motor Sports Association with GRAND-AM, which has produced a new sports car seriesUnited SportsCar Racing, set for a January 2014 debut with the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona. Together, they are presenting this week the new-and-improved, unified face of North American sports car racingon the worlds largest sports car stage.You want pomp and circumstance? At a Thursday Le Mans press conference, Panoz and ACO President Pierre Fillon will present Jim France with the French flag, which he will wave on Saturday to start the 90th anniversary running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I think this is special for Jim, as I know he was at Le Mans many, many years ago and Jim is a real sports car guy, so I think its appropriate, Panoz said. All the roads have finally led to Rome and were getting the consolidation of relationships in sports car racing. And thats all good for the fans, the teams, the sponsors. Moving forward, we need to keep our relationship with the ACO going which Im sure Jim and our new group will do. Its going to be a new era and I think its just going to be bigger and better.