Whatever Detroit is selling on the NASCAR tour this season, it’s certainly not cars, and it’s certainly not engines. NASCAR’s common-template creation has almost nothing in common with anything on the street. Every piece of a Winston Cup car now is specially made. And when was the last time anyone bought a [New] passenger car with a 358-c.i. engine with a carburetor? Nevertheless, Detroit’s presence in NASCAR is huge. And if the men in the suits in the suites of America’s car capital are really paying attention to what’s going on down here, and not simply laying out new full-page ads celebrating victory in USA Today, then Detroit’s presence may soon be getting bigger. Why? Toyota. So is that why Ford’s Robert Yates is suddenly so interested in pushing NASCAR to approve a new, exotic race engine? Yates, the legendary engine builder and #38/88 car owner, is talking about NASCAR’s need for a new-generation engine. The two current designs used on the Winston Cup tour are based on the 1955 Chevrolet V-8 small block and the 1969 Ford 351 small block. What Yates has been working on would be radical departure from those carburetor motors: A four-valve, double-overhead cam 4.6 liter. One of his motors just ran in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and, Yates said, “These things would do fine right here today,” referring to the Winston Cup tour. “They make all the horsepower we need or more, at considerably less cost. And it’s been enlightening for me to work on them,” Yates said. “We felt proud in the 1960s and early 1970s that some of our technology went back to the manufacturers. But since then we’ve really sort of disconnected. There’s not much stock about our engines. I feel like we’re just working on dinosaurs. There is a lot of technology we use on the engines today, and I don’t want anybody to think we’re running with 1955 technology. But I just think we can accomplish the same thing with something that’s built by the manufacturer. That’s when the price comes down. Despite the expected dubious reaction from NASCAR executives to such an exotic piece, Yates said, “It would actually give them better control over what’s going on.” Yates said he talked with NASCAR officials last month during the 24 Hours, and he says he felt he sold Gary Nelson, NASCAR’s director of competition, on part of the concept. Yates suggests that NASCAR might consider approving the engine for the tour’s four restrictor- plate races, “because that’s an engine program of its own. It would be a good place to introduce this engine.(Full story at the Winston Salem Journal )(2-20-2003)
