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Trio partnership highlights Panoz effort
Racing series ALMS
Date 2007-01-03
By Nancy Knapp Schilke - Motorsport.com
2007 will see a unique partnership in the American Le Mans Series LM GT2 class: For the 2006 season, Multimatic Motorsports forged a partnership with the Panoz factory team, but for the upcoming season in the hotly contested class, one of their 2006 rivals has become the third partner.
Tom Milner's Team PTG will take on the day-to-day operations with engineering support from Multimatic and the Panoz factory support for the two Esperante GTLMs that will take on the challenge of besting the Porsche and Ferrari teams.
"The competition in GT2 is becoming extremely fierce and despite the Esperante winning both the Twelve Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006, we believe the pooling of the resources of PTG, Multimatic and Panoz will provide us with our best chance of success in 2007," PTG owner, Tom Milner said.
To add to the pleasure of the ALMS fans, Bill Auberlen will return to the cockpit of the Panoz. Joining the ace sportscar racer will be his 2006 Team PTG BMW teammate Joey Hand.
The drivers for the second Esperante have not been named. Could it be two of the four Multimatic/Team Panoz racers from last year: Gunnar Jeannette and Tom Milner, Jr.? Like Auberlen, Jeannette has driven for the Panoz team efforts over the years.
Auberlen hails from California and moved from motocross racing as a kid into the IMSA GTU series with his father Gary back in the late 1980s. In the mid-90s, Auberlen did a stint in open-wheel racing with the Toyota Atlantic series before returning to sportscar endurance racing.
A shining moment for Auberlen came in 1995 when he landed the IMSA GTS-2 Sebring victory, 10 years after his dad had taken the win in the 12 hour event. In that same year, he set many records and landed his 42nd victory.
BMW landed him as a driver and the marquee proved they knew he could take them to the top. In 1997, Auberlen earned the IMSA GTS-3 drivers' championship and he became a racer whose talent many marquees sought -- from BMW to Ferrari to the Panoz prototype and the Esperante -- in several series including the Grand American Rolex Series, SCCA Pro Racing's World Challenge to ALMS and at times, all in the same year.
For the 2007 racing season, Auberlen has returned to the Panoz family while staying with Milner's PTG team: a good mix.
Hand made his name first in karting winning seven national titles before making his debut in the Formula Mazda Pro Series in 1998. He followed up his rookie season by landing the championship in the West Coast arm of the series.
Staying in open-wheel racing, Hand moved to the Toyota Atlantic series where he notched the 2001 Rookie of the Year title. The next season saw Hand sustain an injury causing him to miss races and yet he earned the Gilles Villeneuve Award in 2002. His final season in Atlantic still kept him from the title he yearned; however, the kid from California earned the respect of his peers and left the series with the Jovy Marscelo Sportsmanship Award.
He found a home with Team PTG in 2004 and even when they changed series, Hand went with Milner. This year, they changed marquee and Hand still enjoys being a member of the team.
The duo will be joined by Tom Kimber-Smith for the ALMS Twelve Hours of Sebring season opener in March. The Brit was one of the three racers for Team LNT who scored the first ever 24 Hours of Le Mans win for Panoz in 2006. The independent team won the GT2 class at the historic race on the La Sarthe circuit.
"Our team is extremely excited at this opportunity and we look forward to challenging strong for the GT2 championship," commented Milner.