CUP: Ford Hopes Penske Addition Will Improve Fleet

Sprint Cup

CUP: Ford Hopes Penske Addition Will Improve Fleet

Ford officials believe the manufacturer as a whole can benefit from Penske Racing...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted March 21, 2012 Charlotte, NC

Ford Racing director Jamie Allison looks forward to Penske Racing joining the manufacturer's fold in 2013. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Ford didn’t add Penske Racing to its stable of Sprint Cup teams for 2013 just because it wanted two more cars on the track.

The manufacturer already has nine cars that it supports in some way – three at Roush Fenway Racing, three at Front Row Motorsports, two at Richard Petty Motorsports and one at Wood Brothers Racing.

But the only Ford-backed team building cars and engines is Roush Fenway and its affiliated company, Roush Yates Engines.

Enter Penske Racing, which will build its own cars and likely build its own engines as it switches from Dodge to Ford after this season.

“It’s not the number of entries that is a factor per se, it’s the number of teams that can act independently yet collaborate in some fashion to kind of raise the performance attributes,” said Ford Racing Director Jamie Allison. “What we really like to see, as we’ve done with the announcement of Penske, is the addition of a team that brings independence, engineering excellence and involvement in other forms of motorsports, especially with the escalation of technology in the sport that we’re seeing.”

Penske announced that it is switching from Dodge to Ford a few weeks ago because it had to bow out of working with Dodge on the development of its new 2013 car.

At that announcement, team owner Roger Penske said the length of the deal was critical – Ford offered a five-year contract while Dodge did not. He also said that being the only Dodge team limited his organization’s development of cars because there are no other Dodge teams to compare its performance to.

But how will Penske and Roush Fenway co-exist? They did it before Penske switched from Ford to Dodge in 2003, but it will be a challenge for both organizations and Ford beginning in 2013.

“We will begin some process of transitions, conversations, understanding of what each party brings, opportunities for working together and where we can support one versus the other,” Allison said in an interview earlier this month.

“So I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to truly understand what Roush Fenway, which we understand so well, brings and what Roger and his team brings and find opportunities, as Roger [has] said, to raise the bar for all Fords in the sport.”

Because Penske is involved in other forms of motorsports, Ford wanted to tap into Penske’s diverse foundation.

“The addition of Penske to Ford will indeed add to our ability to process and deal with and anticipate and plan for the escalation of technology,” Allison said. “Now we will have two teams that will benefit from our role at Ford to work with two teams, both feeding in and both gaining from [each other].”

Penske said he is looking forward to having a strong organization that will give his team a baseline.

“Jack has been kicking my butt here for a number of years, so I don’t expect him to stop,” Penske said. “On the other hand, I think the association (helps us both), and then (we) fight it out on the race track.”

Roush has won 125 Cup races and two Cup championships, all with Ford. Penske won 31 Cup races with Ford from 1994-2002 compared to 26 wins with Dodge from 2003-2011.

The other question is how the addition of Penske will impact how much money and resources it can provide to the other organizations.

Richard Petty Motorsports is in its third season with Ford, and team co-owner Richard Petty has a long history with Dodge. But Ford has put marketing dollars behind the Petty name and will have to weigh the value of the organization.

Allison said any negotiations with Petty about extending their agreement beyond this year would be done in private.

“Our focus is 2012, go out and win races, contend for the championship and go out and get the championship for Ford as a manufacturer as well as the Ford drivers,” Allison said when asked about RPM. “We are focused on this season.”