Dan Davis Discusses 2000 NASCAR Taurus Development

2000 Nascar Taurus due for release at 2000 Daytona 500.

DAN DAVIS, Director of Ford Racing Technology and head of

Ford's worldwide racing program --

WE'VE HEARD THE CHANGES ON THE 2000 TAURUS WILL BE MINOR IN THE FRONT AND REAR. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT PERFORMANCE-WISE? "I think

performance is going to be very similar. We had a

discussion with NASCAR earlier this week and my opinion

is that we will see more differences from Ford to Ford to

Ford today on downforce and drag than you're going to see

in the changes that are being made. If you go out and

measure all these cars on the grid today, I think you'll

see quite a bit of variability. I think whatever we're

doing on the nose and tail of the new car is going to fit

right into that variability. It'll be that

insignificant."

THE CONCERN WITH THE TAURUS HAS BEEN ITS PERFORMANCE ON

THE TWO BIG TRACKS. WILL THESE CHANGES AFFECT PERFORMANCE

AT DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA? "If there are any changes at

all it'll be pretty minor. We have not put the new car in

the wind tunnel, so we don't know what we have. The front

end of the car, the nose is moved around a little bit.

It's a little lower in the center and some of the power

domes are flattened out a bit because of the hood

changes. If you look at the production car, the hood has

some crease marks on the side as well as character lines

and we'll put those in the hood. It may be that air will

go around there a little easier, but that's gonna be it.

Other than that I think we're gonna have the car we have

today, which is a little bit draggy."

IS THERE A COMPLETE RACE CAR YET? "No. There is not a car

done. We have a downforce car that is being worked on

between the Roush and Yates teams and the Penske team is

doing the speedway car. We just took splashes off the

front and rear end of the production car, so we've got

some good sheet metal to work from. Those splashes are

done and they're off making parts. They'll get on cars

and I would expect it will be in that wind tunnel in the

next month with the Busch car. That's the question that

has always been asked. Have we put a car in the wind

tunnel and the answer is no. Teams have done some hood

stuff in the tunnels to see what it's going to be like,

but those are current cars and it was whatever they

wanted to do. We're just now shipping production hoods to

the teams out of our assembly plant for the new car. In

fact, the teams probably don't even have them yet,

they're on the way. We don't have any front pieces or

back pieces molded as far as tooling being done, so

anything being done is cobbled up at this point. We don't

have what we consider to be any cars finished."

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED OR LEARNED WITH NASCAR FROM THE

PREVIOUS PROJECT? "I don't think we've necessarily

learned anything about our dealings with NASCAR, I think

what we have learned is we need to pay a little more

attention to the teams and get them sort of on the same

page a little better. Of course, last time with the

Taurus we were rushing so hard to get things done it was

hard to keep the toothpaste in the tube. Everytime that

toothpaste comes out it's really hard to get it back in,

so teams would get off doing something and we had a hard

time rustling them all together because it was a

wholesale change from the T-Bird to the Taurus and it was

hard. We're trying to do a better job this time of

keeping everyone informed with what we're doing, what's

been done, what's the time schedule, all that sort of

stuff. We're doing a lot better job. This should be an

absolute cake walk compared to that, but it doesn't

negate the need for great communication and constant

communication. We're trying to do a better job with that.

As far as NASCAR, we had an open book with them last time

and we've got an open book with them this time. I think

what we've done a little better with them is we actually

put our timetable in front of them in writing. A month

and a half ago we showed them when the first car will be

done, here's what we're going to do here and here's when

the first car will hit the track. We laid that whole

schedule out for them six or eight weeks ago and put it

in writing, so there wasn't any ambiguity in terms of

what we were going to do and when. So, we're on that

schedule."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TEAMS INVOLVED WORKING ON THE

PROJECT? "Sometime back we brought, I would say, more

than half of the teams to Dearborn and showed them

drawings of what the new car was going to look like. In

that meeting was said we definitely need to do a speedway

car and we think we need to do a downforce car, so we

asked how we wanted to divide and conquer and do all the

work. We laid that out on the teams and they talked with

each other and came to a consensus of what they wanted to

do. There was some volunteering that went on and some

give and take between teams and we kind of stood back and

said, 'If you can work it out between yourselves, great.'

And they did. At the end of the day we had volunteers to

do each one of those cars and they were willing to work

together and share what they found with everyone. Of

course, the bigger teams came forward and volunteered

because they have more resources and that's what you'd

kind of expect."

WHO IS DOING WHICH CAR? "Yates and Roush are

collaborating on a single property for downforce and the

Penske team is working on the speedway car, but, again,

all of the data and everything we learn is going to be

shared with everybody."

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM CHEVROLET'S TROUBLES WITH

NASCAR? "To be honest, no. As a person, I come from the

production world at Ford Motor Company where you lay out

your plans, you communicate, you've got a schedule and

you put the stuff together and you stick by it. Then you

tell everybody what you're doing and you get on with it.

It's like a project and to us this is another project. We

didn't look at anything that went on elsewhere. We did

look at what we could do better than last time and team

communication was something we clearly could have done a

better job on and we're trying to do that this time."

ARE YOU PLEASED THE MONTE CARLO ISN'T COMING OUT THIS

YEAR OR IT DOESN'T MATTER? "It doesn't make any

difference to me. When you bring out a new car it's hard.

I don't car whether you do it mid-season or the beginning

of the season it's hard. It's a lot of work. You're

cutting up a lot of cars and you're doing a lot of work.

For us we saw it a year ago last Christmas. That was a

tough Christmas for all the teams, so it's hard no matter

when you do it."

WHAT'S NEXT ON THE TIMETABLE? "Our timetable indicates is

we'll have a car ready in roughly a month. We'll have a

car put together and ready to run in either the wind

tunnel or on the track. That will be the first time we

actually see what we have. Based on that, we'll probably

make some adjustments and get onto the whole business of

is it too good, not good enough or whatever."

IS THERE A BEST CASE SCENARIO OF WHEN YOU'D LIKE TO HAVE

NASCAR SAY 'OK, THIS IS WHAT WE'RE GOING WITH' AND YOU

CAN START BUILDING THEM? "Not really. The new car

actually gets introduced to the public in late September

or early October time frame. Before the fall we'd like to

have this thing all signed, sealed and delivered so the

teams know what they're aiming for and they can get their

process done. That timetable probably had a date in there

and I don't remember exactly when it was, but it's going

to be a late summer time frame."

HOW IMPORTANT WILL IT BE TO HAVE A BETTER SPEEDWAY CAR?

"It's ultra important to have a better car, but I don't

think that's necessarily going to pop out based on this.

The drag we see on a speedway car is inherent in the

shape of the car and this car is going to have the same

shape. It's like, if you want to change the shape of a

Taurus, you have to change the entire car which is not

what we're doing. I think we're going to live with drag

issues on the speedways because of the shape. Our teams

are getting them better by horsepower and tweaking a

little bit. I think that's going to keep happening and

that's how we'll get competitive on the speedways."

DO YOU HAVE ANY HOPE OF GETTING HELP FROM NASCAR ON THAT?

"We may. It may be that if we stumble onto something as

we go along we may get a little help there, but I don't

expect it necessarily."

ABOUT THE LOOK OF THE CAR. "The most important thing for

us along the way here is when the fans look at this car,

they recognize it's the new one. So when they go down to

their dealership they say, 'Oh yeah, I saw that new

Taurus on the track and I want to see that kind of

product in the dealership.' So we're going to use the

tail lights and head light lenses and those kind of

things to differentiate the two cars."

WHERE DO YOU SEE TAURUS ONCE THE T-BIRD IS INTRODUCED

AGAIN? "In my mind, the new Thunderbird is such a

different car that, to me, they're just light years apart

from each other. The new T-Bird is a very small

two-seater that doesn't even come close to the old T-Bird

as far as size and proportion. My expectation is we'll

continue running Tauruses and the T-Bird is not even in

consideration as far as any kind of race car. The volume

is real low on the new T-Bird compared to the old days.

It's more of a specialty car that's coming out this

time."

IS THE THINKING AT FORD WE SHOULD RACE OUR MOST POPULAR

CAR OR IS THERE ROOM FOR SOMEONE TO SAY A CERTAIN CAR

ISN'T SELLING WELL SO LET'S RACE THAT AND IMPROVE THE

NUMBERS. HOW DOES THAT WORK? "We talk about it all the

time and it's really complicated, especially in NASCAR

racing, because we're looking for wins in NASCAR to help

our overall Ford brand and not just the Taurus brand. If

you go out in the parking lot of a Cup race, you'll

probably see more than half of the parking lots filled

with trucks. I want them to be Ford trucks, so I want the

Fords to win on the track so that fan says, 'That Ford is

a winner. That's a good product. I trust them.' So when

they go off and buy the vehicle they're interested in,

that it ends up being a Ford. To me, we're not just

racing Tauruses here, we're racing the Ford product on

this track and we're hoping that the fan attaches with

Ford and not just the Taurus. I think you can put

different brand names on the track here and probably get

done what we'd like done, but in this case the Taurus is

the right size and it's done. To pitch it and go into

something else just because another car might need a

boost in sales, I don't think that works."

ROBIN PEMBERTON, Crew Chief -2- Miller Lite Taurus -- CAN

YOU TALK ABOUT THE 2000 TAURUS AND THE CHANGES YOU ARE

WORKING ON? "There are going to be minor changes, but the

main goal is to not take a step backwards. We've got a

really great race car in the Taurus that we run now, so

we're trying to take some of the styling cues and

integrate them with what we have now on the front facia

and possibly some rear facia treatments. Hopefully, we

can get a little drag reduction out of the car, but it's

not a big overhaul."

YOUR TEAM ALSO WORKED ON THE FIRST TAURUS PROJECT. HOW

WILL THIS COMPARE TO THAT BECAUSE YOU'RE STILL IN THE

MIDDLE OF A POINTS RACE? "It's not any easier because

we've got a couple more races now than what we had back

then. It's a never ending battle trying to update and

upgrade the present Tauruses as we go along, so it's not

any easier to do it now. In some respects it's a little

bit harder because we do have a good product and it's

hard to make changes and make something that's as good or

better than what we have now."

WHERE ARE YOU AT RIGHT NOW IN THE BUILDING PROCESS?

"We're in the very early stages. We're working on some

nose pieces and integrating them with the present Taurus,

so it's in the very early stages. We really need to pick

the pace up and make some strides here in the next 60

days. We're probably not any farther along now than we

were two years ago when we were doing the other project.

The difference is we do have most of the cars there and

intact."

DALE JARRETT -88- Quality Care Service/Ford Credit Taurus

-- HOW DO YOU LIKE RUNNING THE WINSTON? "It's fun. It's a

race to win and it's all about winning. Nothing else

matters. You go out there with the attitude that the last

10 laps are what matters. The first segment, we won that,

but that doesn't do a lot of good. That was back whenever

they inverted so that just got us back in the field. Now

they invert just a certain number and nobody know what

that will be. The second segment is where you try to work

and get yourself into position to where you are ready for

those last 10 laps because, otherwise, you can't make up

a lot of time with all of the good cars that are out

there."

DO YOU ENJOY THIS KIND OF RACING? "I don't know if it's

my style exactly, but my guys work hard and if I'm gonna

give them an opportunity to get into victory lane, then

we've gotta change that a little bit. We've had to change

our thinking. We tried to use our race setup and that

just doesn't work. It wins the 30-lap segment, but it

doesn't do you any good in the last 10 laps. We've

adjusted our thinking a little bit and adjusted our race

car. Last year was probably our best year. We finished in

the top five and now we have to work on that just a

little bit more to give ourselves a chance to win."

DO YOU FEEL YOU'VE GOT SOME MOMENTUM? "It's nice. It's

good to win and to be leading the points. We have a long

way to go and a lot of things can still happen. We

realize that as quickly as that lead appeared it can

disappear too, if we don't do our job. Saturday night is

kind of for bragging rights and fun. If you win it pays

good money and that's what Saturday is about. It's really

a race for the fans, for them to come and see the winners

go at it in a short race."

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE 2000 TAURUS, WHICH WAS

OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED THURSDAY? "We've been helping out

with the car and the changes are very minor. The picture

looks like there is more of a change than what there

actually is to the actual race car and the passenger car.

The changes we'll see on the race car will be very

minor."

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