Thank you for your comment's. I take them all into consideration and often try some applicable suggestions. This specific location on the racetrack did not lend itself to panning as the car is actually pivoting around turn 7a and that would not lend itself well to motion blur... I was indeed panning into this picture and there were shots that achieved a good motion as the cars accelerated out of this turn . There was a noticeable amount of smoke coming from under and around the car... some from the tires, some from the unburnt gasoline and maybe some from his ears ! In any event the post processing made it better yet I wasn't wanting to over process it. It did respond well by giving it a bit more saturation ~ made the red pop.
Tim