jacostang

I'm looking forward to a 43 Petty Blue Fusion! Can someone photo shop that??

Zastava_101

Good luck with that.

I think this is as far as Petty blue we'll see.

jacostang

I know but I'm feelin better now that Kasey is back and then maybe just maybe Marcos will come home....

Eights

97svtgoin05gt: I hope the FR9 will have a positive effect, too--but Petty Enterprises won't do something with it that established Ford teams can't do as well or better.

Can someone--anyone--tell me what exactly it is that Petty Enterprises brings to the Yates table?

Like all racing, it ain't what you did back in the day--but what you can do this Sunday when the green flag drops. STP knows that and Chrysler knows that, which is why Petty Enterprises is sponsorless today.

As I said upstream in this thread: Wake me when a Yates/Petty vehicle wins a superspeedway event...

Greg "Eights" Ates

codeman94

Uh.. How about two Sprint Cup Wins from 2009... and a driver in the 2009 Chase. its called Success.

How any Races did Yates win? How many Yates drivers are in the chase?

Moosetang

Outside of Menards, what sponsors have Yates been able to hold on to? NASCAR scripting Hendrick/Chevy/sometimes Toyota success has screwed over the ability of Ford and Dodge teams to hold onto sponsorship alone. Roush would be in the same boat if he weren't the smartest guy in NASCAR and hadn't signed on with Yates' first-class engines for his first-class chassises, even so just barely staying in the spotlight versus Hendrick. RPM and YR don't have Roush's resources or recent success to bring money in, by merging the Petty name with the Yates(+Roush) technical ability they're hoping to garner enough support to crawl back into the conversation.

I have no optimism left about FR9, by the way. Everything I've heard says it was done a year ago and NASCAR bolted it to a shelf to give GM time to negate any gains Ford has made. Which wouldn't be AS bad IF the GM and Ford engines currently had parity, but they don't and everyone knows it. NASCAR's giving GM (and possibly/probably Toyota) all the time in the world to make sure FR9 is just as far behind their engines as possible.

97svtgoin05gt

If this is true, they will lose me as a fan. I'm sick of the GM preference in the sport. Its trash.

Zastava_101

Ford should just quit NASCAR and focus on some other competition.

codeman94

Funny how Petty announces that they are moving to ford and Kahne's engine blows up..

Eights

Calling these modest accomplishments "success" doesn't impress me any more than it impresses Chrysler and STP, the corporations who felt it was better to go it alone than to go it with Petty Enterprises in tow. To be totally fair, codeman94, I don't see why anyone spends a cent on NASCAR in any form or fashion, so I admittedly harbor a kind of bias. I challenge Bill Ford or Alan Mullally to show proof that NASCAR involvement has sold one Ford in 2009, unless it was to NASCAR itself (wreckers, tow trucks, whatever) or to the families of NASCAR team members that campaign Fords on the circuit. I just can't see anyone shopping for a new car giving the slightest consideration to the NASCAR prowess of the manufacturer of the car. When I was a kid fifty years ago, I believe that NASCAR prowess did indeed sell cars--but I think that way o' thinkin' died out with the last bootlegger...

I certainly am not trying to sound mean or effete--I just don't think NASCAR success sells squat anymore--GM fanboyz would buy GM anyway, even if NASCAR wasn't in GM's back pocket. If NASCAR was to go belly up at the end of this year, say, the sales of GM, Ford, Toyota, and Dodge will not drop even one vehicle. Trust me on that.

Greg "Eights" Ates

jacostang

I was thinking about the last post and got me thinking about, how and when I became a "Ford Guy".

Well it was 1987 and I had just became a Paramedic, and our company won the contract to do all the EMS for the track. During the process of getting to know the ins and outs of Nascar one of the drivers came into the med center and introduced himself and let us get really close to his car, trailer safety gear all the stuff and he invited us to eat with him and his crew after practice.. The next day we were invited into the Ford Motorsport Tent and I was sold on Ford forever...Ford gave us some goodies and I remember Him saying that if we were not there they would not be racing.. I have so many pics of that day but none in digital until I get off my ars and scan them.. The driver was Bill Elliott and that weekend was one of the best I had ever had meeting Alan Kulwicki, Dick Trickle, Mark Martin, Kyle Petty and Davey Allison.

Nascar has changed alot, not all I agree with but I cant get away from it. Don't know why but I feel a very certain loyalty to Ford, they have never given me anything but alot of pride.. Just my 2 cents worth.....

I wonder if that would have been GM, would I be a Ford guy or a GM Guy, I do know that I have not bought any other brand than Ford since then and the Challenger is my wifes...

codeman94

I pretty much agree.... I don't think Nascar sells Ford Fusions. BUT. I do think NASCAR sells Mustangs and Ford Racing Products... just that same as any other racing series that Ford is involved with does. I would say they are probably spending too much on NASCAR, but to not be involved in it at all would rob Ford of a lot national TV face time and advertising opportunities.

mweeps

I gave up on NASCAR when Mark Martin had to switch to Chevy so he could have a chance at a title after Roush and him were robbed by NASCAR years ago.

70MACH1OWNER

red pony

Probably more precise would be when Nascar allowed street cars one could buy off the showroom floor. "Win on Sunday SELL on Monday" meant the car was a raced vehicle on Sunday that could be bought off the dealer Monday! Now, If Nascar went back to that today, their dear Chevrolet would not fare so good! Nascar jumped on the Chevy bandwagon due to everybody (not me) being so Queer over the small block Chevy motor! They are cheap enough to build, that in the event they should blow up, which they do in short order, you just start over! Today, if Nascar went back to the OLD rules of stockcar racing, allowing stock cars to race, Ford would do very well, which is why Nascar will never go back to the old rules!

Zastava_101

I think GM got NASCAR's loyalty back in early 1970s when everything went downhill with economy and gas prices. Ford and Chrysler left NASCAR then, during NASCAR's toughest times, but GM stayed. Since then GM has been doing whatever they wanted.

Eights

Red Star: That's the story I've heard, too. I gave up on NASCAR aound 1970 when my interest left cars and turned to motorcycles. I never became interested again because NASCAR "stockers" bear no more resemblance to streetcars than do dragstrip funnycars.

It is more than 50-50 likely that GM will soon fold anyway, as the Bailout money will be spent and no one will support a third Bailout. And when the next GM bankruptcy happens, I hope it takes NASCAR with it into the dusty annals of automotive history.

BTW, the last time that every make & model of car competing in NASCAR could be bought in a dealership showroom with the engines found under the hoods of their NASCAR equivalents was in 1962. That is a long, long time ago--most of the members of this forum were not born--or even close to being born--back then. And that is the tragedy that is/was NASCAR...

Greg "Eights" Ates

jacostang

I really love Grand Am and I wonder if maybe they had the same TV coverage it would and could become a regular event on TV every weekend!!!

Eights

jacostang: Beware the Trojan Horse named "Popularity"! Too much coverage, too much attention, and too much publicity will encourage certain unscrupulous auto manufacturers to resort to cheating & bribery to see that their vehicles get wins. There was a time (and it may still be true, AFAIK, because I don't give a flying f**k about NASCAR so I don't keep tabs on their current affairs) when Chrysler sponsored one NASCAR superspeedway race, Ford sponsored one, and GM sponsored seven. Since TV rights and ticket sales (at least at the time) paid the costs of putting on the races, these "sponsorships" were essentially cash payments to NASCAR's top execs. So who's gonna get the rules breaks that virtually guarantee big wins--the two companies who each sponsor one race (a pay-off) or the company that sponsors seven races (seven pay-offs)? The Grand-Am's parent organization is NASCAR, so already the Camaro gets to run the largest engine in the Grand-Am's Koni Challenge, and gets to run it without a restrictor plate--the Challenger's smaller pushrodder must race with a restrictor plate (in a larger, heavier car) and the even smaller Mustang 'Cammer must race with a whopping seventy-percent restrictor plate.

According to an account in a biography of the late Mark Donohue, one of the Penske Camaro's crewmembers relates how in the late-'Sixties/early-'Seventies Trans-Am events they always brought two identical Camaros to the Trans-Am events--except the one that was sent through inspection had the regulation Z28 302 and the one that was sent to the starting grid had a 350 (the maximum engine displacement limit at the time was five liters--about 305 cubic inches). Grand-Am officials never caught on (or were instructed to look the other way if they happened to notice a second Camaro in the Penske transporters). This is what can happen when unscrupulous manufacturers notice that a racing series is getting really popular.

red pony

It's stories like this that make me hate GM all the more! And lately Nascar is running a close 2nd! If one goes, the second will follow!I hope Ford just steps aside and lets Nascar die with its bed partner. When ya lay with dogs, ya get fleas!