Ford Racing and Roush Fenway Racing announced Wednesday that they have agreed in principle to a multi-year contract. Brian Wolfe, director, Ford Racing Technology, along with Jack Roush, owner of Roush Fenway Racing, and Geoff Smith, president of Roush Fenway Racing, answered questions about the deal during a teleconference. A few highlights: BRIAN WOLFE CONTINUED – WHAT CHANGES, IF ANY, DO YOU ANTICIPATE NEXT YEAR IN NATIONWIDE AND TRUCK SERIES PROGRAMS? IS FORD GOING TO BE GIVING THE SAME LEVEL OF SUPPORT TO THOSE SERIES AS IT HAS IN THE PAST? “First, our prime goal was really to protect our performance in Cup racing, and with that we have cut back our support for the supporting series. We have not pulled out of those series, for example, with truck we are basically going to continue with the contingency program and continue our technical support to the teams racing Ford products. But as far as financial, we will not continue next year. And, also our Nationwide program has been scaled back as well, but we are continuing with technical support and the contingency programs as well.” JACK ROUSH CONTINUED – WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE TRUCK SERIES NEXT YEAR, INCLUDING ENGINE SUPPORT? “The Roush Yates engines are partnered with Ford to provide engines, not only for the Sprint Cup Series but the Craftsman Truck Series and Nationwide Series as well. Ford’s support for the engines – through the engine shop – for the development of the engines for the specific rules and I guess the other challenges that come from other manufacturers is the same that it has been. So for people that want to race Ford trucks and people that are able to and want to race Nationwide Fusions, there is no change. The support continues at the same level it’s been at. We’ve got one sponsored entry – Con-way Trucking – for Colin Braun that we’re gonna run for a championship in the Craftsman Truck Series next year, and we’re open to accept interesting calls and proposals from other sponsors that would like to be involved with truck. Right now, all of our Nationwide programs are fully funded. Our Truck program is fully funded. We’ve got one more year running five Sprint Cup teams. They’re all fully funded with sponsorship and I think that’s a testament to the fact that over the period of time we’ve given our sponsors good value, good return for what they’ve done and how strong NASCAR is in the eyes of the consumer and how well that’s recognized by the people who need to compete for the support of interest of consumers.” WHAT ABOUT ERIK DARNELL’S STATUS WITH YOUR ORGANIZATION? YOU SAID COLIN BRAUN WAS THE ONLY FULL-SPONSORED TRUCK NEXT YEAR. “Erik is gonna have an involvement with us next year in the Nationwide Series. If a sponsor came and very much wanted to have Erik back in the Truck Series, we would certainly think about that. If Erik is going to advance, my understanding of his career goal wasn’t that he wanted to be a Craftsman Truck driver for his career. He’s looking to advance into Nationwide and into Sprint Cup and we’ve got an opportunity, although he’s not running for a championship, he’ll get a significant number of races in a Nationwide Fusion next year. We would look, I think, with greater interest in having a full program for Ricky Stenhouse or one or two other drivers that we haven’t really had a chance to audition yet in the Truck Series. See the full transcript at the Ford Racing site.(10-23-2008)
