Panoz Motor Sports

It's hard to become a car designer without a college degree, but that's what Dan Panoz decided he wanted to do as he approached the end of his 20s. Unable to find a company that would hire him and provide on-the-job training, he did the next best thing: He started his own business, Panoz Auto Development Co., in Hoschton, Ga., a few miles down the highway from Atlanta. He designed the car he thought the country should have. He found state-of-the-art manufacturers to fabricate the body and frame.

It's hard to become a car designer without a college degree, but that's what Dan Panoz decided he wanted to do as he approached the end of his 20s. Unable to find a company that would hire him and provide on-the-job training, he did the next best thing: He started his own business, Panoz Auto Development Co., in Hoschton, Ga., a few miles down the highway from Atlanta. He designed the car he thought the country should have. He found state-of-the-art manufacturers to fabricate the body and frame.

The way Bill Auberlen looks at it, if he could survive training with the BMW racing team in the Italian Alps, driving one of the German cars on the world's fastest road courses shouldn't be too difficult. For seven days, last month, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., the Redondo Beach driver skied, ran, hiked, did aerobic exercises, lifted weights and rode a mountain bike at 8,000 feet with seven other members of the BMW factory team.