AO Racing’s Hyett bringing ex-Bourdais Newman/Haas Panoz back to Long Beach

The person bringing the most joy to fans this weekend at the Long Beach Grand Prix just might be AO Racing team owner/driver PJ Hyett.

Winners of IMSA’s most recent WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event in Sebring where his No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R captured the GTD PRO victory, Hyett decided something special was required of “Rexy” for the GP’s 50th anniversary. So IMSA’s most popular car was entered in the pro-am GTD class — which is the only category that races alongside the GTP cars in Saturday’s 100-minute race — and countless kids will be enraptured by the presence of the dyno-themed “GT3 Rawr” race car.

But Rexy is only half of the fun Hyett’s dispatched to Southern California from AO’s shop in Illinois. His normal ride is an LMP2 car known as Spike the purple dragon. And yet, with IMSA’s visit restricted to GTP and GTD, Hyett isn’t competing in IMSA’s portion of the event. He’ll be over in the Historic Motor Sports Association paddock tucked inside the convention center where his ex-Sebastien Bourdais Newman/Haas Racing Panoz DP01, the 2007 Champ Car race winner (pictured above), is being run by Don Hoevel and his crew.

Everything about the gorgeous Panoz, dressed in its iconic McDonald’s livery, propelled by its howling Cosworth turbo V8, is what Hyett has come to experience. While it will be Hyett’s first time in the car after completing a single test day, the DP01 is certainly capable of producing speeds that surpass today’s IndyCar model around Long Beach.

“The story starts when Newman/Haas was auctioning off a bunch of their old Champ Cars and IndyCar stuff,” Hyett told RACER. “I honestly couldn’t believe just the history associated with all of these amazing vehicles the opportunity to bring home the ’07 championship winner that has so much great history, one of the best IndyCar chassis ever built.

“I’ve heard from a number of drivers just how great this Panoz car is, and I’ve only had the opportunity to drive it once, but I couldn’t be more excited to drive it again at Long Beach, to experience the thrill of driving it again. That livery, as a Chicago native — McDonald’s is headquartered in Chicago. I’ve got a little bit of this hometown thing going on. And then, of course, with Newman/Haas based out of the north shore of Chicago as well, there’s a lot of fun connections for me wrapped up in this car.”

Hyett was thrilled by the opportunity to buy the car Bourdais made famous. Marshall Pruett photo

From Bourdais to Will Power to Simon Pagenaud to Graham Rahal to Oriol Servia, all of the Champ Car drivers who got to race the DP01 speak of it with great reverie. Many say it’s the best IndyCar they’ve driven, which will probably lead to plenty of today’s IndyCar racers wandering over to the HMSA paddock and lobbying to get a few laps in the car during one of the historic sessions.

“It’s absolutely an honor for me to be able to own something like this,” he said. “But when I look at the different strata of collectible cars, I feel like this is criminally undervalued. That auction that I was referring to where I was able to purchase the car, I don’t think too many people knew about it, and I don’t think too many people were paying attention, because I have no idea why I was able to scoop up this car for as little — relatively speaking — money as I did.

“It has so much great history. I’m taking it to Long Beach where it got pole, and Sebastian won, and it won the entire championship. I just couldn’t believe that more people weren’t paying attention to these things, because these are incredibly special cars that the drivers know, but I’m not sure the general public gets it.

“From that perspective, there’s lots and lots of cool cars that are worth huge amounts of money. These are not, and I don’t get it, because they’re incredibly special. So to me, having the opportunity to own it and then drive it, it’s an absolute dream come true.”