Source: Ford Motor Company Press Release
DEARBORN, Mich., February 2006 – By definition, the word fusion means “close union,” so it should come as no surprise that when the time came to develop Ford’s new flagship model for NASCAR, the manufacturer and its teams worked together.
However, there was one major philosophical difference in how the NASCAR Fusion was designed compared to its Taurus predecessor. Instead of having one team do all of the physical development work, like Penske Racing South did with the original Taurus race car in 1997, Ford Racing personnel, such as head aerodynamicist Bernie Marcus and NASCAR field manager Ben Leslie, handled that responsibility.
“I think as a company that Ford has gotten more capable in these areas so that we can take the load off our teams,” said Ford Racing Technology Director Dan Davis. “I think the philosophical difference is that we can let the teams race from week-to-week, instead of worrying about the future.
“We can take some of that load off the teams, but we can’t do it all ourselves. We still have to interact with the teams,” continued Davis. “There’s still a tremendous amount of interaction going on, but it’s gotten to the point where we can unload them to race week-to-week and do what they need to do on the track and win championships while we do some of the things that are going to go into the future. Even though it’s a philosophical difference from how we did things in the past, I think it worked.”
With Marcus and Leslie heading up the project, along with Ford body specialist Jerry Painter, Ford began working on the project in 2004 and enlisted ideas from each team on what areas should be addressed.
“Obviously, the first thing that we wanted to do wass match or improve on the aero performance of the current car. We wanted to get at least an aerodynamic performance gain at the restrictor-plate races,” said Marcus, who keyed Ford’s redesign of the Taurus nose and tail in 2003. “Second, it had to look close to the production car that we’re going to use, so it had to have certain features built in. The hardest part is to make it all work within the constraints of NASCAR rules.”
So how do you go about deciding where to start?
“That’s where you’ve got to lean on the teams,” said Leslie, who has served as crew chief for Kurt Busch, Mark Martin and Ricky Rudd during his career. “You have to work on fixing the problems that they have and you want to build a car that aids the teams in their day-to-day life and not just do some scientific exercise. So you lean on the teams for their feedback and ask where their problem areas are. Do they want more front downforce? Do they want more rear downforce? Is cooling an issue? You take a poll of what the teams are struggling with and then you start working to try and average it out between all the teams and get a direction.”
With the main thrust of the car design focused on Fusion’s nose and tail sections, Ford personnel spent countless hours in the wind tunnel trying to develop a package that would be competitive on short tracks, road courses, intermediate tracks and superspeedways.
When Taurus was constructed it made an immediate impact on downforce tracks such as Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Mark Martin led a charge that saw Ford drivers sweep the top seven finishing positions and 13 of the top 14 overall in 1998. That marked the first points win for Taurus, but while it was strong on the 1.5-mile ovals, the car struggled at the restrictor-plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega. That’s something Marcus and his colleagues looked at closely this time around.
“It was a major point,” said Marcus. “I wouldn’t say it’s an emphasis because you still have to have downforce to win on these type of race tracks, so you can’t give that up. At the end of the day, downforce is an over-riding factor, but you can’t put piles of downforce on regardless of whatever the drag turns out to be. You’ve got to try to marry the two together somehow.
“We had to make sure that once we got what we wanted for the downforce car that we put it on the speedway car and made sure it worked because you want to try and take a little drag off,” concluded Marcus.
With 570 wins in its NASCAR Nextel Cup Series history, Ford has been able to remain competitive and win championships with a variety of vehicles. Ned Jarrett won the 1965 series title in a ’65 Fairlane, while Bill Elliott and Alan Kulwicki captured their crowns in a Thunderbird. Dale Jarrett, Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch all made it to the top with Taurus, so just because Fusion will be in its rookie season in 2006 doesn’t mean it can’t be competitive out of the box.
“Evolution makes you put new bodies on, regardless of whether the body style changes or not,” said Leslie. “When you build a car you really like in February, it’s going to be behind when you get to November. In some years there is evolution with no body change and in other years there is evolution with different pieces.
“It’s interesting to work on new stuff and it’s interesting to work on what is going to be the future of the garage and what people are going to end up having to work with on a daily basis,” he added. “This is such a grander scale than when you’re working on one specific car. You’ve got a tremendous responsibility to not build something that is going to put somebody in a box that they can’t work with. We’ve got eight cars fielded in the Nextel Cup Series, so this car has to have pieces that all of those teams can work with that will help in their day-to-day life.”
Just how fast Fusion makes it to Victory Lane or wins a championship remains to be seen, but as far as how this new car was built, Davis summed it up best.
“I’m very happy with the results.”