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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Ford Looks For Revival
Ford hopes 2010 will be much better year then 2009 and they hope Richard Petty will be a big part of it...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted January 26, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Ford logo. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Richard Petty Motorsports will campaign Ford engines in 2010, a move Ford hopes will be a boost for all the NASCAR teams that use Ford engines. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The 2009 Sprint Cup season began with Ford racing through high cotton.

Matt Kenseth won the Daytona 500 to open the year with flair, then surprisingly backed up that effort by winning the next week at Auto Club Speedway in California. It was a rare double to open the schedule, and the folks at the Blue Oval could be forgiven for being a little excited.

No one could have imagined at that point that it would be 31 long races until another Ford crossed over into Victory Lane. Jamie McMurray finally ended the drought by winning in the twilight of the season at Talladega.

Fords won 11 races in 2008 before sinking in ’09, but it’s been six years since a Ford driver won the Sprint Cup championship (Kurt Busch in 2004). And, despite Kenseth’s win last year, the Daytona 500 hasn’t been a peak experience for Ford drivers in recent years, either. The only other Ford 500 wins since Davey Allison’s in 1992 have been Dale Jarrett’s pair of victories in 1996 and 2000.

So the 2010 season will begin with Ford looking to juice its results and, with the addition of Richard Petty Motorsports to the fold, hoping to broaden its footing.

“When Matt won the 500 and then California, probably all of us thought, ‘Man, this is it, it’s going to be a lot of fun,’ ” said Carl Edwards. “But throughout the year we struggled. We did work hard. Personally, I learned a lot about myself and the team and about the stuff we need to work on.”

The early optimism also touched Roush Fenway Racing owner Jack Roush.

“I thought 2009 was going to be a slam dunk,” he said. “We just missed it. It wasn’t a bad year. It just didn’t meet our expectations.”

One of the people at the center of Ford’s hoped-for revival is Jamie Allison, the recently appointed director of FoMoCo’s worldwide motorsports activities. He’s still new and learning.

“Ford has a tradition of winning,” Allison said. “Our goal is nothing short of continuing our winning tradition. What transpired last year is one of those moments you can look upon and build from. The addition of the Richard Petty Motorsports talent and Roush are positives.

“If you look at the last four or five races of the year, the Fords had kind of gotten their act back together. So I’m looking forward to a return to the Ford winning ways we’re accustomed to, both in NASCAR and across all motorsports.”

After a complex series of moves at the end of last year, Petty and his four drivers – Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler, AJ Allmendinger and Paul Menard – moved under the Ford banner for the new season. RPM will work closely with Roush Fenway and will use Roush-Yates engines.

“All this strengthens Ford’s involvement in NASCAR racing,” said Max Jones, RPM president and a former Roush lieutenant. “We’ve added four high-quality drivers and some good teams and great sponsors. It’s a really strong organization.

“I’m hoping we can get moving really strong right at Daytona. These guys have been consistent. I think Kasey did an unbelievable job last year. I think if we just knock off some of the rough edges, it will be a really smooth transition and we’ll just keep going.”

Donnie Wingo starts his second season as a crew chief at Roush Fenway and will work with driver David Ragan, replacing veteran Jimmy Fennig.

“Everybody’s pumped up to make all this work,” Wingo said. “I came here in 2009 and expected to do a lot coming off ’08. I don’t know if the competition kind of got ahead of us or if we just fell behind. I guess it was a little bit of everything – cars, people, setups.”

Mike Hembreeis NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.


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