BORN AGAIN; Champ Car's new baby hits the track.(Competition)

Former Champ Car, Indy Racing League and Formula One driver Roberto Moreno covered 600 trouble-free miles in the new Panoz DP01 Champ Car during its first test at Sebring.

Champ Car revealed the DP01 on July 29, just prior to the San Jose Grand Prix. The engine remains Ford-Cosworth's 2.65-liter V8 with a single Garrett turbocharger. The new gearbox is a seven-speed Hewland design that shares about a dozen of the same parts, including some gears, from today's transmission.

Besides the onboard starter, which should dramatically reduce yellow flags because of stalled cars, the biggest mechanical change is the steering column-mounted paddle gearshift system, similar to those used in Formula One cars, except F1 shifters are hydraulic and Champ Car uses a pneumatic system. Scot Elkins, Champ Car technical director, said the transmission caused the most concern, due to the high levels of heat generated by the turbo. The new gearbox should reduce over-revs, and generally increase the drivetrain's overall life.

With more downforce and weighing about 100 pounds less than today's Lola package, the DP01 should be faster. But since there is only one car available for testing, Moreno went for lots of miles at Sebring, not overall speed. Testing, incidentally, was done on Sebring's short course, bypassing the bumpy long back straightaway and the frontstraight, past the main grandstands.

Testing will continue at Sebring and at a couple of other tracks into the fall. Elan Motorsports will soon begin cranking out two cars a week, and teams will get their first cars at the end of November. "Everyone will test together,'' Elkins said. "No one can test privately until [after] the first race in 2007,'' in Las Vegas.

"We're going to set up three open tests where everybody is all there at the same time,'' Elkins said. "The idea is that one, nobody gets an advantage, and two, if we do have teething problems, like you do with a new car, we're all there, we all know exactly what's happening.''

No one at Champ Car is willing to go on record about it, but yes, designers did consider the IRL's potential needs during the DP01's design, based on the never-ending rumors that the two rival series will unify. "We would have been crazy not to,'' said one source close to the car's development.