diff --git a/kernel/panic.c b/kernel/panic.c
index f7ecb36cf2b3..c4ef86fc643f 100644
--- a/kernel/panic.c
+++ b/kernel/panic.c
@@ -420,7 +420,6 @@ void vpanic(const char *fmt, va_list args)
 	static char buf[1024];
 	long i, i_next = 0, len;
 	int state = 0;
-	int old_cpu, this_cpu;
 	bool _crash_kexec_post_notifiers = crash_kexec_post_notifiers;
 
 	if (panic_on_warn) {
@@ -457,13 +456,10 @@ void vpanic(const char *fmt, va_list args)
 	 * `old_cpu == this_cpu' means we came from nmi_panic() which sets
 	 * panic_cpu to this CPU.  In this case, this is also the 1st CPU.
 	 */
-	old_cpu = PANIC_CPU_INVALID;
-	this_cpu = raw_smp_processor_id();
-
 	/* atomic_try_cmpxchg updates old_cpu on failure */
-	if (atomic_try_cmpxchg(&panic_cpu, &old_cpu, this_cpu)) {
+	if (panic_try_start()) {
 		/* go ahead */
-	} else if (old_cpu != this_cpu)
+	} else if (panic_on_other_cpu())
 		panic_smp_self_stop();
 
 	console_verbose();