Nascar Ford Racing
When the 2004 Taurus made its debut at Daytona, which represents the most synergistic of Ford in race car design to date. This synergy comes from all corner of the Ford empire and includes solid representation from not only from the ranks of NASCAR, but also the true side of world production.
The previous version of Taurus, originally presented to the public in the 1998 Daytona 500, has yielded excellent results. However, his humble beginnings came after public and, at times, cantankerous battles between various team entities who wanted to leave his mark on that particular iteration.
"A lot of times you can build a car that suits just about a team, "said Ford Racing NASCAR, Robin Pemberton, Field Manager, in a trap of this type of exercise engineering. Pemberton is in a position to know, as it was one of the directors of the three entities team that worked in '98 Taurus while working at Penske Racing South.
"I think the last two times I had Penske doing one version, making a Yates and Roush do one," Pemberton shaking his head. "During that (98) of the project, NASCAR cut templates off of cars and different cars that were built in different ways and not all the templates fit all cars at the same time.
"It was almost impossible."
With the lessons learned from 1998, Greg Ford Racing Specht knew I wanted to address the issue of car design differently. With more heavy engineering staff at your disposal, all I needed was the word that the production staff wanted a new car developed for the NASCAR circuit.
The announcement of a new Taurus came approximately 20 months before his first on the subject and experience includes conversations between Ford Racing and Ford production. The result is a race car that is representative of what consumers see on the showroom floor.
"What we have in '04 is a new setting of the Taurus, so it starts a process," Specht recalled. "After making the decision, we tell the production guys, 'OK, what are your thoughts? show his sketches and drawings, and so on and so forth.
"With their ideas and goals in place, we went back and started looking at the race car and say, 'OK, now we have to do to the race car so it looks like the production car? "
Having production designers more intimately involved vehicles from the start is also new to the process, as the value of the base of NASCAR fans becomes a key factor.
"In the recent past, considerations of race have not influenced their (production) thinking a lot in any case," Specht said. " Even dating back to Thunderbird, which they did in the study design was not affected much by what was happening on the track. However, it is starting to change we are asking for [Ford Racing] input much earlier in the process and some ideas that will actually improve the production of automobiles and trucks.
"That occurred with the new F-150, actually, because since aero was such a big thing on the track, we spend much more time in the wind tunnel with our trucks career that production engineers in the production truck, "continued Specht." So we know much more about balance and downforce and drag and the subtle little things you can do to enhance those characteristics. "
Once the basic design concepts have been developed, streamline the process began. This is the playground of aerodynamics lead Ford Racing, Bernie Marcus, who spent considerable time developing the nuances the new car by using hand sketches and computer modeling before being taken into account in the formation of real metal fenders, hoods and decklids.
Marcus did not have a large open field on which to draw from because of NASCAR's "aero-matching" rules, but closed at the starting point for the new car for the use of models electronic and models of 40-percent clay.
"I think the reason everything went so well is because it also included NASCAR early and that was very different in the past, "Specht offered." Older programs that have been involved in, sat in the corner and do our work. The day is due, we handed it to NASCAR and said, 'OK, here is our car. Can we have your approval for this? "
"We taken a very different approach this time, and before you begin the manufacture of the car and then went to the teams and had some idea of what I wanted. We brought NASCAR up to Dearborn to our design studio and met with the designers of automobile production and walked through NASCAR. "Here is the production car. This is what I plan to do with the race car to match the production car. What do you think?
This is resulted in success. The first time the 2004 Taurus competed in a NASCAR race, Dale Jarrett drove one to victory in the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway in February.
"The piece we're finishing with a race car is very good," said Specht, "and goes to show that two heads are better than one."
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