Ford Racing and Roush Yates Engines will run the new 'FR9' engine during the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. (Photo: Getty Images)

It was the simplicity as well as the effectiveness of the Yates head that so impressed Miller. “Robert was making life simpler,” said Miller. “He was making small chambers so that he didn’t have a piston dome to make compression, it was a flat top, and the flame travel had no obstruction.”

The Yates head eventually helped the increase of horsepower in the NASCAR Ford V-8’s because it could sustain higher compression. A new Ford cylinder head was introduced in 2004, but it picked up right where the Yates head left off. The key change was NASCAR allowed the movement of the intake valves from the production location, which was forbidden in the early 1990’s. But the original Yates concept remained mostly intact while newer material technology and manufacturing techniques were introduced.

Key developments powered by the Yates head included the championship season by Thunderbird driver Alan Kulwicki in 1992. The first full year it was nominated as the standard Ford cylinder head for the Sprint Cup, that same season, Ford won the manufacturer’s championship for the first time since 1969.

In general, the Yates head design and its horsepower helped give the Ford team owners who were born and bred in NASCAR’s premier series a new lease on life versus the onslaught of team owners who were successful businessmen outside of racing. That was part of the design of NASCAR president Bill France Jr., who mandated the rule.

With NASCAR’s “out of the box” cylinder heads, the wealthy team owners could not simply outspend their brethren on new metalurgy and designs in the cylinder heads to find more horsepower. Each team had to start with the same equipment designated by the manufacturer without modifications to the ports, which often necessitated new material technology.

The rule applied to Pontiac, Chevy and Ford teams, the three competing manufacturers at the time. The successful launch of the Yates head was aided in part by the decision of Chevrolet’s racing division to choose a cylinder head favored by drag racers with an 18-degree high port design. The Chevy teams in NASCAR rebelled against that choice and it was soon replaced.

The group of Ford legacy team owners who benefited from what would be a longterm run of excellent horsepower from the Yates head included Yates himself, the Wood Brothers, Johnson and Kulwicki, later succeeded by Geoff Bodine.

Perhaps the new FR9 will help breathe more life into the dwindling legacy teams, which now includes the recent merger between the Yates Racing team, co-owned by Doug Yates and Max Jones, with Richard Petty Motorsports.

In any event, the FR9 means the end of an era as well as the beginning of a new one.

Jonathan Ingram has been writing full-time about the world’s major motor racing series and events since 1983 for newspapers, magazines and web sites.


John can be reached at jingram@racintoday.com