01/29/07: The first Grand Am race of the 2007 season, the Florida 200 KONI Challenge was a great one for Mustang with a one - two finish. First place was the No. 5 Blackforest Motorsports Mustang driven by David Empringham and Tom Nastasi, followed by the No. 55 Hypersport Mustang driven by Scott Maxwell and Joe Foster.
Overall, 5 of the top 11 placing cars were Mustangs. This is significant when you consider that the competition includes several world class performance cars including BMW M3 and Porsche 997. Below are a collection of track-side chats from the main player’s in last weekend’s race.
David Empringham – 5 (car pictured above)
Q: Is this the type of competition we are going to see all year long?
A: “I certainly think so, 106 cars and a lot of good teams and good drivers. It was quite a battle. Certainly it was a lot of fun for me racing with Tom and my good friend Scott Maxell. We share offices in Scott’s store and all week long we kind of joke about racing against each other and it came out today, it was quite a battle.”
Q: Did the Nissan and BMW being up there at the end kind of surprise you?
A: “I certainly knew that Billy would be strong. Certainly the advantage goes to the Mustang on this track, and we need to take the advantage whenever we can get it. We go to short tracks and it flip-flops the other way, and Bill’s a tough car to beat. Here we had an advantage and we’ll take it and we had to fight against the other Mustangs.”
Q: How about the pass for the win?
A: “I had a little bit of a run on Scott [Maxwell], and I knew the only way I could get him would be on the inside. So I just kind of hung out a little bit high on the outside of his quarter panel. As the banking finished, I dove to the inside and I think he knew that was happening and he was already on the white line and I could tell that he wasn’t going to give it up and I was going to go in the grass. It was a pretty tight squeeze and we both managed to make it through.
Q: Can you talk about those last laps in the end and how you were able to pull away with the horsepower?
A: “They were strong, but I knew we had the advantage in the right places. I was more worried about Scott. I was struggling a little bit out of the east hairpin; I kind of burned up my left rear too much trying to get by a few people. One of the restarts and I was back a ways, I was getting anxious. We were really strong until we pitted early and everything looked really good, and I went out with a new set of tires and the tires had an imbalance and I decided to not gamble and come in and change tires a little bit later than I wanted to, so I fell behind Scott and Bill. So I knew it would be quite a challenge. I thought we had lots of time, I wasn’t too worried about it, and then there was such a long yellow it turned out to be a bit of a panic to get by those guys.”
Tom Nastasi – 5 (car pictured above)
Q: What is it like to earn a trophy that doesn’t have to travel too far to be in the trophy case?
A: “The trophies come back to my house in Connecticut. I had a Christmas party and we both looked at the mantle and I said, ‘Dave, we need to put this win in there this year.’ It was looking a little empty, especially after last year. We really wanted to win last year’s race, and at the beginning of the race when I got walked around by Porsches, I knew it was going to be a long season. The car was great today, and I just saved it for Dave. We knew it was going to be tough at the end, but he did it.”
Q: Tell us about your new Mustang Cobra GT race car.
A: “We have a new Ford-Crawford Mustang Cobra GT. It’s the only Ford in the field in the GT. It’s a brand new car, we’ve been testing it a lot. It’s not as fast as the Porsches yet, but it’s very reliable. It’s the same engine that’s in the Grand-Am Cup cars, so we know we’ll have no engine issues. I’m driving with Alex Tagliani and Guy Cosmo and I think we have a great chance if we keep the car out of trouble we have a shot at a podium. Also, Valerie Limoges is driving it; we kind of have her on standby. This is new for her, but she tested the car and did incredible and I enlisted her as the fourth driver.”
Jamie Allison, manger, Ford Racing Performance Group, and Paul Randle, chief engineer, Mustang, talk about Ford Mustang’s claiming five of the top 11 spots in the KONI Challenge season opener at Daytona International Speedway. This is the second time in three years that Mustang found its way into victory circle.
Q: Talk about the significance of this win being the second in the last three years.
A: Paul Randle – chief engineer, Mustang – “It’s not just one-two, it was pole position and it’s six of the top 11, I mean how proud are you?
A: Jamie Allison – Manager, Ford Racing Performance Group –“Having coming off a season where Mustang was in the top-10 in many, many races, it was just a dominating return to winning. This is nothing shy of what we expect from Mustang and for the rest of the season.”
Q: How about from the production and commercial side?
A: Paul Randle – chief engineer, Mustang – “Just to see the quality of drivers and the way the cars hold up and the way they perform compared to the BMWs and the Porsches, it’s just fantastic for the car. We’ve got engineers here from the plant and some manufacturing guys and to see what we build on a daily basis compete like that with the best in the world is just phenomenal.
“What was amazing was how many times the announcer said that Mustang and Ford power in the same breath. Watching our cars on the straightaways overpower the rest of the field and pulling away, it was like they were an elastic band. They’d just come out of the corners and pull away and the power of the car was just so impressive.”
A: Jamie Allison – Manager, Ford Racing Performance Group ––“I tell you, we always say that Mustang is America’s beloved muscle car and to be a muscle car, you’ve always got to flex your muscles. And today, we flexed our muscles again in a dominating way. We are excited to see Mustang back on the podium again. A great season ahead.”
Scott Maxwell and Joe Foster, co-drivers of the No. 55 Supercuts Hyper Sport Mustang, fought for the win until the very end of the race at Daytona International Speedway. The team ended up in second place after leading for a total of 17 laps of the season opening race for the KONI Challenge Series.
Scott Maxwell – 55
Q: Tell us about fighting the last few laps with David Empringham.
A: “Overall the race was great. We got second, I’m a little disappointed about that, but it was a great race. Especially with Bill and Dave at the end. I thought I had him where I wanted him; I thought I could get him on a pass if I kept him close enough. On the last laps, I couldn’t pull his draft. It was a fun race and a good battle and it’s always fun when it’s another Mustang and a guy you trust. We trust each other and gave each other a lot of room. The car was great all day.”
Q: How did lapped traffic play in with the cautions?
A: “With the cautions now, it kind of gives you clear track. My car was pretty good in traffic; I didn’t really have any issues with the traffic. I was just hoping that it was going to stay green. I thought we had it and then we had a couple yellows and just couldn’t get back up there.”
Joe Foster – 55
Q: What was going through your mind during those last laps?
A: “It was exciting. To be honest, before we got to that point, we had already had a great weekend. It was great overall for the team. Scott and Dave are old sparing partners and share an office in Toronto so Scott said he wasn’t going to let him by. I figured it was going to probably come down to the two of them anyways. My job was to hand off the car and serve him up an opportunity to win and all we can do is to get him in the position to take the win. We did everything we should have done to win. It just didn’t roll out that way. It was a good weekend and we’re in it for the long run and to win a championship. It was great for Hyper Sport and Supercuts. This year we have a real live commercial sponsor, which in this series is rare. We want to make sure that we give them good enough bang for the buck, which I think we did.”
Q: How was the traffic?
A: “Traffic was crazy as usual. We’re always managing brakes because of that, a little bit of transmission managing too. I was kind of surprised to be able to lead, as I was racing to pace and almost a level of abuse to the car. It was fun racing with Tom [Nastasi], he’s a great guy.”
Q: Did the cautions hurt on fuel strategy?
A: “Yes, it was difficult. We took a gamble on fuel strategy, which we needed a caution for, and we got that caution. We then got anther caution that we didn’t want because Scott had a better car. In the end, the restarts did kill us a bit and wish we could have pulled away a little earlier.”
Dean Martin and co-driver Ray Mason, wheeled their No. 59 Columbus Truck and Equipment Ford Mustang GT to an eighth place finish in the KONI Challenge season opener at Daytona International Speedway.
Dean Martin - 59
Q: First race of the season with a top finish?
A: “We’ll take it, but I wish we would have done better. We should have done better; we were one of the fastest cars. It’s just the way that traffic played out and the cautions played out and just having to come from the back, it was too late. Then there was caution after caution and we only ended up getting 12 laps to make up about 30. There was a lot of cars out there, it was really busy.”
Q: How was the car overall
A: “The car was good, it’s always good. It only started going away at the end. It was real good, the motor was great, which is good because it’s an old motor.”
Q: Having worked at Ford, is there a lot that you can transfer from the racing car to a production car?
A: “Yes, and that’s probably the biggest benefit that I have. My job at SVT [Ford Special Vehicle Team] was a vehicle dynamics engineer. The same rules at SVT kind of apply to this series. A lot of the stuff I learn here, I can transfer back and a lot of stuff I learn at work, I can transfer to here [the race team]. We [our team] really brings a lot of knowledge of Fords and it helps us.”
Q: What does the 2007 Season have in store?
A: “We’re planning on another full season. Jack Roush Jr. is usually my co-driver, but he couldn’t be here today because his wife is going to be giving birth soon. Jack and I will be teamed up together for the rest of the season. He came down here and tested with us. He’s used to kart racing, so he’s not used to the heavier car or the three pedals so we’re getting him up to speed and he’s got great talent. He’s kind of learning the car and he’s getting faster and faster every time he gets in the car. Every time he gets in the car, he gets faster.”
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