From the JournalNow: “GM’S Terry Laise says he’s not in favor of standardizing certain race-car measurement to make the new Taurus and the Monte Carlo more similar, an idea broached by Jimmy Johnson, manager of the Rick Hendrick operation. “We’re racing Monte Carlos and Grand Prix, not IROC cars,” Laise says. Laise is the aerodynamic specialist for GM, and he is particularly irked that NASCAR has seen fit to modify the Thunderbird’s roof to make it more efficient than the Monte Carlo roof, after he had to spend so much time at GM working with designers to make the production car work also as a race car. NASCAR, in effect, simply gave Ford something that GM officials had to fight over. “The trailing edge of the Thunderbird roof is 1 1/4 inches lower than it’s supposed to be,” Laise said. “That’s a tremendous advantage. It’s probably a 50 percent improvement in downforce, as well as an improvement in drag(6-23-97)
