Click
Here
for more articles |
|
|
A
New Race Car Combines the Best Ideas with
the Latest Technology |
by:
ARA |
(ARA)
- Exactly how many people does 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 made its debut at Daytona,
it represented Ford's most synergistic effort
in race car design to date. This synergy
comes from all corners of the Ford empire
and includes solid representation from not
only the NASCAR ranks but also the real
world production side.
The prior version of Taurus, originally
presented to the public in the 1998 Daytona
500, has provided excellent 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
just suits one team's purpose," said 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 while 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 cut templates off of cars and they
were different cars that were constructed
in different ways and not all the templates
fit all the cars at the same time.
"It was almost impossible."
With lessons learned 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 needed was word that the production
staff wanted a new car developed for the
NASCAR circuit.
The call for a new Taurus came approximately
20 months prior to its first on-track experience
and included 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 re-freshening
of the Taurus, so that kicks off a process,"
recalled Specht. "After the decision was
made, we say to the production 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 production car?'"
Having the production car designers more
intimately involved from the start is also
something new to the process, as the value
of the NASCAR fan base becomes a key factor.
"In the recent past, racing 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 much 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
some ideas that will actually improve the
production 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 production engineers do with the
production truck," continued Specht. "So
we know a lot more 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 considerable
amount of time working out the nuances of
the new car by using 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 using electronic
models and 40-percent clay models.
"I think the reason everything went so well
is because we also included NASCAR early
on and that was very different 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 handed it to NASCAR and said,
'OK, here's our car. Can we have your approval
for this?'"
"We took a very different 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 production car designers
and walked NASCAR through. 'Here's the production
car. Here's what we're thinking of doing
with the race car to match the production
car. What do you think?'
This approach resulted in success. The very
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 early February.
"The piece that we're ending up with is
a very good race car," said Specht, "and
it goes to show that two heads are better
than one."
For more information, visit www.fordracing.com.
Courtesy of ARA Content
About the author:
Courtesy of ARA Content
Circulated by Bandoni
Media
|
|
