Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
2016 NASCAR Media Tour – Charlotte, NC
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
After unveiling the new NASCAR Fusion to the throng of NASCAR media members in attendance at the Ford Technical Center in Concord, North Carolina, Wednesday afternoon, Ford Executive Raj Nair and Dave Pericak took questions from the group.
RAJ NAIR, Executive VP for Global Product Development and Chief Technical Officer, Ford Motor Company – HOW DOES RACING HAVE AN AFFECT ON THE FORD PRODUCTION CAR LINEUP? “I think where we are at with racing and production engineering right now there are probably aspects where the production Fusion has a degree of sophistication higher than the race Fusion. There are more lines of code in that vehicle than a Boeing 777, generating 25 gigabytes of data. There are aspects of production engineering that is pretty advanced but an area that racing is probably more advanced because of the limit of testing because you are racing on tracks that are repeated and mapable, the aspect of simulation and what we can do either on the computer or in the simulator behind the wall there is more advanced than what we do in production right now. Part of it is that the production engineers are actually pretty stubborn (laughter). You know drivers. So, to convince them that we can develop the vehicle in the simulator took some work. Obviously the range of authority we need for a production vehicle and variation in surfaces and fine tuning we have to do – we aren’t going for a lap time, we are going for feel. The simulator really has to feel right. It has taken some work to convince them that this is a valuable tool to use up front. A lot has been having the Ford Performance engineers present results in Dearborn. I hold a monthly meeting where we bring production and race engineers together and share what tools are valuable and we are looking forward to using the simulator to develop production vehicles going forward.”
DAVE PERICAK, Director, Ford Performance – YOU HAVE BEEN IN THIS POSITION FOR A YEAR NOW, HOW HAS THE GROUP EVOLVED IN THAT TIME? “It has been a heck of a year. When you start a new organization there is a lot that goes into that. We didn’t have much time and had to get going fast. Raj had the vision of putting all of our racing, performance products, marketing, parts and accessories all under one umbrella so we can leverage all those efforts and really maximize our investment. It has really proven throughout this one year to really be paying off. A lot of people ask for a proof point, and I mentioned the GT350R-C going out racing and as we were developing that and getting it ready to go out on the track and learning from what we did on the track fed into the production car. We made quite a few changes to the production unit based on what we were learning on the track. That is just another example where being under one group, under Raj’s leadership, we can go fast and do a lot of great things. I think we are already seeing what this organization can do and we are still in our infancy. I am looking forward to accelerating that this year.”
LONG TERM, DO YOU HAVE PLANS TO GO BACK TO PROTOTYPE RACING? “Well, we are going to race the GT and GTLM, we cannot do the overall win but we can win the class. A lot of people have asked why we decided to do that but I think it is about the relevance of the GT and what it means for the rest of the company and keeping it as something tangible and real because it represents the best of what we have at Ford Motor Company and we are using it to advance our tools and technologies and bring that back into our product development process and the cars we put in peoples driveways. To us what is most important is to leverage that vehicle for what it was meant to be used for and that class allows us to do that. So for now we don’t plan to go into the prototype class and we think this is the right class to be in.”
RAJ NAIR CONTINUED – “We obviously love to race. There are aspects that we have talked about back and forth that make the production car better, but we are also racing for our fans. There is an aspect for us that the return is that they can relate to the car that is in the showroom to the one that is on the track. Whether it is Fusion in NASCAR or GT350R-C or the Ford GT. The prototype class is great and they are incredibly sophisticated vehicles. The technology in those vehicles you could argue the time frame for mainstream application is pretty far out. Some of the powertrains will probably never be mainstream technology. To be frank, the aspect of the budget for prototype endurance racing and fundamentally one big race, Le Mans, is tough to make the return. Particularly when the prototypes we are talking about don’t race in the US. It would be primarily a European and rest of the world effort. That is one great thing about the GT and how we are doing it, we will be racing in IMSA and at really historic tracks like Daytona and Sebring and we will also be racing in Europe with Le Mans being the biggest of that. We think it is the right strategy for us and the best return as well as really getting that type of engineering into the production vehicles.
DAVE PERICAK CONTINUED – HOW IMPORTANT HAS THE WORK INSIDE THIS BUILDING BEEN TO INCREASING THE SPEED TO IMPROVE YOUR RACING AND PRODUCTION CAR PERFORMANCES. “I think Raj did touch on that a little bit. There is no doubt that this facility is allowing us to develop state of the art tools, technologies and training of our engineering teams to be more nimble and move quick and learn new technology. They learn how to apply it to production vehicles. We see this as of course helping our drivers when they get on the simulator and helps them as they race on Sunday but more importantly we are developing those tools for the long term and cascade them to the main product development team and cycle.”
DO YOU EVER SEE A DAY WHEN THE TECHNOLOGY OF DRIVER-LESS CARS TRANSFERS TO RACE CARS? “I don’t know but Richard Petty said to me earlier today that if that ever happens he can go racing again.”
RAJ NAIR CONTINUED – THE DIGITAL DASH BOARD IS ROLLING OUT THIS YEAR, DO YOU ENVISION CASCADING THAT DOWN TO THE PRODUCTION WORLD WITH DIGITAL DASHES THAT CAN BE CUSTOMIZED TO DRIVER PREFERENCE IN PRODUCTION CARS? “There is some customization that is already available in our digital dashboards, particularly on the side screens whether you want to see fuel economy or trip or whatever. I think you will see it increase as we go to a full LCD cluster which is an industry trend to more customization of the entire cluster. Having said that I think there are some aspects of just because you can doesn’t mean you should. So we want to make sure that it is not overwhelming our customers with the complexity of what can be displayed on the cluster and not becoming a driver distraction aspect. We have to walk that tightrope as we roll out the digital clusters into production.”
