“We were already to go with a race in Malaysia back in 2001 but of course that was right after 9/11” said Dr Panoz. “nobody could fly anywhere and the race was cancelled.”

Consolidating their efforts on the American Le Mans series, Le Mans style racing has become the premier road racing category in the USA with big crowds, increasing TV ratings and more manufacturers joining the series.

In Europe the ACO’s own Le Mans Endurance series is also looking healthy while the juggernaut that is the 24 heures du Mans rolls on with 2008 seeing record crowds for the event and the battle between automotive giants Audi and Peugeot attracting worldwide media attention. (well except for here in Australia of course)

Two Asian races are planned for 2009 the first at Fuji with a 1000km race on October 30 - November 1, with the Shanghai 1000km set for only one week later. As with the Petit Le Mans, each class champion will receive an automatic entry to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, making the series more attractive to teams from both Europe and America.

The plan by the ACO would then be to expand the series in to other parts of Asia, possibly including Australia at some stage in the future, although in light of the domination of racing down under by the massive and politically powerful V8 Supercars any move into the local market would be an enormous challenge as Panoz himself found out after the Adelaide race. But with the slow but steady growth of GT racing in Australia and with cheaper airfares opening up the region to a lot more Aussie travellers, any thing that moves the colour and spirit of Le Sarthe just that little bit closer has got to be good news.