Where do Panoz LMP07's go to die? The local Sebring Walmart, apparently. Our man Collins was mortified by the caged LMP900 car, but loved the cheap clothes. A convert to NASCAR, this British national proudly wore a pair of $9 Walmart camouflage pants and » More Photos

Sam Collins, 10:11 PM ET

There are certain new experiences one has to face in life, a first kiss, passing your driving test, and for me visiting a Wal-Mart. Today I made my first visit, the store in Sebring in not much to look at and as you stroll the endless aisles of low priced tat, you come across something quite unexpected, and really rather sad. A Panoz LMP07 sits in a corner of the store, covered in dust and largely ignored (theres a great deal in menswear on Jeff Gordon sweatpants). Chequered flags hang limply above it. Its like seeing a caged animal, once such a dynamic exciting vision of speed, now sat impotent in the corner of a discount supermarket.

Another sad fact came out during the live Midweek motorspot show broadcast on Radio Le Mans/American Le Mans Radio, Ian Dawson's Radical SR9.5 will not be taking part in the Sebring 12 Hours, the team had been struggling to get the car together in time, managed to get it together enough to go to tech inspection, but failed on a couple of points. The team will now skip the next race but promise to return in future.

Driving around near the circuit we passed a GT40 (replica? I can never tell) and it just looked right, one of the best bits of styling in automotive history. History that has repeated, the new Doran racing built Ford GT-R just looks too sexy. It may not have gone that fast yet but why rush when you look that good!

I spoke with Doran to gather data for an upcoming feature in Racecar Engineering, and to give you the short version, this car is the first of six, the Robertson team will receive another example, Doran will run one himself, two have gone to collectors, and the sixth is currently unsold. But that means come Petit there will be three GT-R's!! And interesting aside is that this racecar produces less power than its road car parent!

The infield is continuing to fill up, the 'party zone' is under construction promising bikini competitions, tequila and other dubious activities. I'm definitely going there, purely for research purposes you understand!

I spent most of the sessions yesterday gathering up more speed trap data for a feature which should appear elsewhere on this site, but I got to explore more of the circuit, watching cars shoot past a metre from me at the apex of turn 16 was pretty special. You could feel the wake of the car hitting you, pretty incredible. But watching the cars in the corners it quickly becomes clear quite how tough this race will be, the LMP2's can trouble the P1's more than expected, the Corvettes will definitely trouble the LMP2's and the flock of GT2's are all so close in pace that they will be too wrapped up in thier own race to be easy fodder for anyone. This really really will be a thriller in Florida.