Ford Flags V8 Supercar Belt-tightening

[f-wolf]

Monday motorsport report

May 14, 2007

Ford flags V8 Supercar belt-tightening

For the second time in as many months, Ford is making ominous noises about its V8 Supercar racing budget.

Ford's Australian president, Tom Gorman, says the company's greater emphasis on more compact, fuel-efficient imported cars could threaten its investment in Falcon V8 Supercars.

"We used to be the ?Falcon Car Company' and now we're not -- we're expanding the franchise," Gorman told journalists at his regular monthly face-to-face last week.

Gorman says he is constantly querying Ford's spending on its race teams and believes there may not be as much passion for V8 racing in the future and that he's now pushing alternative nameplates such as the new Mondeo and the smaller Focus and Fiesta models.

"V8's has a very direct correlation -- because you really do buy the car? I think there's a role for racing to create passion in the automotive industry but there won't be as direct a correlation as there is today

"We'll always be in racing, but we have to be more strategic about how we use it," Gorman says.

He also warned that V8 Supercar needs to continue its focus on cost containment and says it should limit its offshore races to New Zealand. Amazingly Gorman also told the media that the V8 Supercar promoter did not see Ford Australia as "a key constituent."

V8 supercar should be careful of biting the hand that feeds it and concentrate on generating excitement for what Gorman termed a uniquely Australian sport, he said.

When the head of one of the two participating car companies in V8 Supercar racing speaks, you have to listen. And, when he speaks in this vein twice in two months, you have to listen twice as clearly. Gorman is trying to tell someone something.

V8 Supercar has been very successful in taking Australian touring car racing to new levels in the past decade, but (despite some desperate attempts at hype in the past five years) there is little prospect of Toyota entering the fray, and even less of Mitsubishi doing so.

If Gorman's words aren't heeded, there may come a time (as some smart alec suggested elsewhere in the past day or so) that V8 Supercar racing becomes Formula Holden. And that can't be what anyone wants. Even Holden?

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... Formula Holden.

Isn't it already???

Could be concerning times ahead, perhaps they may even have to shift back to production racing!

[01txr]

Why don't they just come out and say it as it is.

Ford is sick of being dictated by gmh's brown nose antic's to Tega/Avesco & cams of being allowed to do as they please outside the rules in the V8 supercars.

Everyone including the non HRT HSV Expensive Daewoo race teams know what is going on.

As I have said in other posts what is the point of Ford competing if the rules are allowed to be dictated by HRT & HSV teams.

Hell it's a wonder that they arn't able to fit blowers to there cars, or maybe they have already.

Maybe Ford have read many a Forum and found that there is a lot of unhappy Ford loyalist who have turned there backs on the sport because of the unfair rulings and one rule for Ford and another for hrt / hsv.

gmh can't make or build a car that can truely out perform the Ford product so they have to stoop to dictating the sport by using illegal componants and tactics and have there drivers punt leading position Ford drivers off the track so they can actually win a race/championship.

"If you can't win punt them off"

"If you can't win cheat till you do"

These should be there long life moto's.

Ford should start up a Comp all of there own with the likes of all the performance range competing against each other.

The different models all have there advantage's so would provide some very interesting racing especially with the new Focus I have been told is happening soon with all wheel drive.

Maybe even focus there racing and promoting with production class racing the way it should have stayed.

This would help with sales a lot more as it is what we buy and drive.

If you seen say a XR6Turbo do well on the track and you where looking for a new car it would help make your decision better than seeing a exotic parts tin shell win.

hrt/hsv thankyou for Fords new step forward into the future.

[Laner]

maybe Ford should find a way to bend the rules too, or maybe Expensive Daewoo is just doin a better job, Ford results over the last few years have been the best in ages, why look for the devil in supercar racing, its a sport ffs, you have your ups and downs

[01txr]

Its ok to loose to a better product, but how would you like to spend billions in a sport to be competitive only to have your main opposition be allowed to go above the rules to have the advantage with there inferior product.

How many people in the general public know what is actually going on beyound pit lane and are under the impression that gmh have the better product.

Just look at all the vt - vz gen3 crummies bad oiling problems, poor machining tolerences, can't rebore engine blocks, powersteering oils leaks & fires etc etc hell they can't even make a petrol flap that stays attached.

The governing bodies even allowed gmh race teams to move the chassis rails inwards to allow the required rubber to fit, great engineering. Also didn't it have 21 recalls in a 9 year period.

And how many people out there think there crummy is the ducks guts due to the v8 supercar wins.

Even the poor dud AU is a way better engineered car with way less problems but because of the aero advantage's allowed to the crummy by the governing bodies the AU looked like a inferior car.

This hurt Ford with sales.

Where mentioned why don't Ford do the same, well look what happened when Ambrose had a useless loose wire coming from his EM & his lack of wearing a Balacrava.

Hell Murph puts Ambrose into the wall and that is deemed ok but not wearing a Balacrava, go figure.

Ford can't even scratch their arse without the governing bodies slapping penalities or fines on them.

hrt/hsv work as a 4 car team, can't prove ownership rights and pays there way out of it with no penalities at all.

All I can say is Ford you are doing the right thing in moving away from the v8 supercar series as these biased rules have hampered Ford for to many years from displaying the true engineering quality of it's products.

[Laner]

V8 racing has failed to hurt sales for a long time, IMO....rising fuel prices, I could agree with, people dont use the "win on sunday" ideals anymore, without fleet sales, Late model camira and falcon cease to exist, what V8's are now is a simple blue oval vs the lion fan spectacle.....

the fact is, 4200 people here dont give a rats who wins on sunday, they have made their choice, and if it was that important, we'd all be in xr8's and a lot slower

its a sport, and its competitive, if you want exact same cars with exact same power, without the opportunity to have a winning edge/advantage, bring back the mirage cup!!

at the moment, Toll/HSV are the team to beat, surely you dont foget that Stone Brothers were in the same position a few years ago....were you upset then, my bet is NO.

competition is healthy, blatant crying over spilt milk is

and if Ford does pull the pin, they are hurting themselves, and Expensive Daewoo will not have caused their demise, anyone remember the scraping of the V8???

[01txr]

Why does crummy out sell the Falcon then if it's not v8 supercar related.

Can't you see that toss/hrt have the rules to suit them and dictate the championship.

I think you need to open your eye's a bit on what is actually going on with the sport.

And I wouldn't care if the crummies won every race as long as it was by the rules.

Stone Brothers dominated because they had a fantasic driver, this same driver finished the AU in 3rd place in it's last championship which you have to hand to him since he did it with a car that had like 40+ kg less frontal downforce due to the shorter undertray than what the crummies where allowed to use. I would say even if Ambrose was still racing here he would be struggling to keep pace with the toss/hrt cars.

So I suppose toss/hrt are really that much better than 888 even though it was Lowndes championship last year until p rick kelly ended that.

Didn't 888 have more wins than toss or hrt last years championship?

Where are they this year have they gone backwards in there performance or is it that the new ve is a much better race car than the falcon.

If that's the case why is it only toss/hrt in the top 10 most of the time and the rest of the top 10 is filled out with the fords.

Wake up hrt/toss have been found breaching the rules and allowed to get away with it by making a finanial agreement (bribe I would call it).

This is the only reason why they are the teams at the front.

And as you say there are majority of people on here that have made there mind up on there make of car and don't care who wins .

This is not the issue it's about Ford moving away from the v8 supercars.

And I was only stating my thought's on why they are doing so.

[Dagabond]

[Laner]

ive re-thought this one....if it upsets you so much 01txr, you can always watch lawn bowls on the ABC.....

Edited 16/05/07 07:31 AM by Laner

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I get the impression he's a bit passionate about this subject