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CarsA New Race Car Combines the Better Ideas with the Latest Technology
by:
ARA
(ARA) – Exactly how many an folk makes it take to design a new car for NASCAR racing? As far as Ford’s new Taurus is concerned, the answer is many.
And they all need to be on the same page.
When the 2004 Taurus ready-made its debut at Daytona, it depicted Ford’s most synergistic effort in race car design to date. This activity comes from all corners of the Ford empire and includes solid representation from not only the NASCAR ranks but likewise the real earth creation side.
The prior version of Taurus, originally given
to the public in the 1998 Daytona 500, has provided superior
results. But its humble beginnings came after public, and, at times, cantankerous battles between various team entities that wanted to leave their mark on that specific iteration.
“A lot of times you can build a car that simply suits one team’s purpose,” same
Ford Racing’s NASCAR Field Manager Robin Pemberton, on a pitfall of this type of engineering exercise. Pemberton is in a position to know, as he was one of the principals of a three-team entity that worked on the ’98 Taurus spell working at Penske South Racing.
“I think the last couple times we had Penske doing one version, Yates doing one and Roush doing one,” recalled Pemberton shaking his head. “During that (’98) project, NASCAR would-be cut templates off of cars and they were several cars that were constructed in several route and not all the templates fit all the cars at the same time.
“It was simply about impossible.”
With lessons knowing from 1998, Ford Racing’s Greg Specht knew that he wanted to approach the car design issue differently. With a heftier engineering staff at his disposal, all he required was word that the creation staff wanted a new car developed for the NASCAR circuit.
The call for a new Taurus came close to 20 months prior to its 1st on-track experience and enclosed
conversations between Ford Sport and Ford production. The result is a race car that is representative of what consumers see on the saleroom
floor.
“What we have in ’04 is a re-freshening of the Taurus, so that kicks off a process,” recalled Specht. “After the decision was made, we say to the creation guys, ‘OK, what are your thoughts? Show us your 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 what do we need to do to the race car to have it look like the creation car?’”
Having the creation car designers more intimately involved from the start is likewise thing
new to the process, as the value of the NASCAR fan base becomes a key factor.
“In the recent past, sport considerations haven’t influenced their (production’s) thinking a lot anyway,” explained Specht. “Even going back to the Thunderbird, what they did in the design studio was not affected that more by what was happening on the race track. However, it is starting to change in that they’re asking for [Ford Racing’s] input a lot earlier on in the process and several ideas that wish really improve the creation car and truck.
“That happened with the new F-150, in fact, because since aero was such a big thing on the race track, we spent a lot more time in the wind tunnel with our race trucks than the creation engineers do with the creation truck,” continuing
Specht. “So we cognize a lot more simply about balance and downforce and drag and the subtle little things that you can do to increase those characteristics.”
Once the basic design concepts were developed, then the aero process began. This is the playground of Ford Racing’s lead aerodynamicist, Bernie Marcus, who spent a extensive figure of time working out the nuances of the new car by victimisation hand sketches and computer modeling before any consideration was given to forming actual metal fenders, hoods and decklids.
Marcus didn’t have a wide-open field in which to draw from because of NASCAR’s “aero-matching” rules, but he closed in on the starting point for the new car by victimisation electronic models and 40-percent clay models.
“I think the reason everything went so well is because we likewise enclosed
NASCAR early on and that was really several from the past,” Specht offered. “The previous programs that I’ve been involved in, we’d go off in the corner and do our jobs. The day it was due, we bimanual it to NASCAR and said, ‘OK, here’s our car. Can we have your approval for this?’”
“We took a really several approach this time around, and before we started fabricating the car and after we went to the teams and had an idea of what we wanted to do. We brought NASCAR up to Dearborn to our design studio and met with our creation car designers and walked NASCAR through. ‘Here’s the creation car. Here’s what we’re thinking of doing with the race car to match the creation car. What do you think?’
This approach resulted in success. The really 1st time the 2004 Taurus competed in a NASCAR race, Valley Jarrett drove one to ending in the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway in early February.
“The piece that we’re ending up with is a really nice race car,” same
Specht, “and it goes to show that two heads are better than one.”
For more information, visit www.fordracing.com.
Courtesy of ARA Content
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