RPM's reported direction with Ford???

[donmoos]

Allot of speculation and miss quoting of Richard has gone on requarding the details of the asorbtion of Yates.

As I read Richards comments he was neither confirming or denying that RPM would be having Rousch provide chasis's.

We had alot of discussions on the merits of outsourcing these functions (chassis and engines) at the old PE sight.

Is anyone a bit uncomfortable with this line of thinking. I feel that RPM has established that they can produce an acceptable chassis. There has been marked improvement. To abandon that capability at this time see a bit severe for me.

With all the pending sponsor deals carrying over into 2010 I would think that RPM is not in critical mode. Abandoning theirchassis program for one that is not necessarily burning up the circuit this year (Rousch), to me would seem drastic.

As for the Engines, with Fords new engine coming online I can see the reluctance to tackle that prospect from scratch. I personally don't feel that the new teams involvement with Rousch Yates Engines will be the same as it is currently. Yates will have little or no motivation or incentive to ensure a equal partnership with RPM.

The other questions I have is reguarding Nationwide programs. Yates ran several Nationwide cars this year....not sure they were all full time but, Menard had a car and not sure of all the others? (feel free to list for me, anyone).

with the Mustang and Challenger being designated for Nationwide, I am more excited by that series than ever before. And I am also pondering the prospect of Kyle Petty possibly running nationwide for RPM? not sure it's possible but if sponsorship exists it could happen.

[eddyk82]

I have been working this whole scenario out in my head the last few days ever since the news broke and as more has leaked out from it.

I for one am excited about the whole manufacture change. Dodge basically feels the Penske program is more beneficial to finacially back then the RPM fold which I find amazing as I feel we have proven to be more competitive this year then Penske's organization and we were running the older Dodge engine. Look at the points as they stand there now. All our cars are higher in points than Stremme ( obvoius why he is out). Hornish is higher then Reed and Elliot ( not by much) Allmendinger got him beat though. And Kasey is in the chase with Kurt but has a higher start spot due to his two wins versus Kurt's one.

As for the whole intent to merge deal. Merge is being replaced by the word "buyout" here. Gillette and Richard are letting Yates come aboard in the same fashion as Gillette let Richard come aboard at the end of last year. But there is more to this than that. It's the affliation with Jack's camp here. They do produce a well put togther and competitve chassis and have been doing so for years and with the new engine's debut Ford will be a dominant force by next year. They are not going to come out and say that they will be out sourcing the chassis and engines but its guarenteed that they will. Look how everyone sdaid that they would be sticking with Dodge for next year... haha. In the business world they never say anything until the ink has dried.

[twiss43]

The business decision was Gillett's IMO. If RP had a say he propably would have tried harder to stick with Dodge (loyalty stuff) RPM seems to have a decent chassis in house, don't see a benefit to outsourcing this. Yates engines have always been strong. Doug has a reputation to look after and I think he is proud of that reputation.

[songsmith1950]

Not so sure our chassis are all that great yet. If they were and AJ is as good as we think he is I think he would have been running a little stronger. After all, before the new engine Kasey was good but not as good as he is now with the new engine and chassis combo.
Yates engines will be wonderful to have. All four cars with the new strong Ford engine will be a joy and will really let us be able to judge our drivers a lot better.
As far as the chassis go. I don't think Roush is that much ahead of us but perhaps a little as his cars were more consistent.
I do agree though. Yates building engines and our own chassis department is the way I like.

[dodgehemi]

Let Yates bulid the engines and RPM build the chassie

[ricklou]

I agree with Tom in that the cars overall can still be improved. Concerning Yates racing, it will be RPM's property very soon.

All here have made good points. It would be hard for RPM's engine group to switch gears and build Ford engines off the bat with out losing a lot of ground. Dropping RPM's engine shop may be the reason that Mark Mcardle was fired as surely he was not happy with the turn of events.

Chrysler does not have to coin to do it correctly right now so RPM has to find a way to get manufacture support and R&D. Could RPM's current egnine group switch over and build Ford engines that can win races ? I bet that they think so. From a business stand point it makes since to buy Yates as this gives RPM a race ready engine package.

In my opinion part of this is due to the current engnine rules. Compression limits have been in place for several years and this puts a premium on engine developement. The need for a restrictor plate program adds to the load.

Years ago it was not that big of a deal to switch engines after the factories backed out. The playing field today in Nascar is an engineering and technical challenge of the highest degree.

The manufactures came back enforce during the 80's and since have pumped countless millions into NASCAR teams who have come to count on the financial support. The factories used to bring the special pieces and hardware and money but in recent years to teams have taken to repsonsibility of engine R&D and car developement.

Jack Roush in particular is a major force in the auto industry and does work for all of the big three. His R&D programs rival that of any American auto manufacture as they look to him for what goes into our production cars. Roush's racing efforts require little or no help from Ford other than engine blocks, heads and funding.

Toyota on the other hand obviously is completely involved in development of their racing engines. Hendrick's people are in the same position as Roush and rely on funding from General Motors eventhogh I suspect GM may have more involvment with racing R&D, I could be wrong but the trend in recent years is that the top teams are nearly self sufficent when it comes the their engine programs and provide the manufactures with the R&D for racing applications.

RPM has to hit the ground running to stay in the hunt and this is why they are buying Yates Racing. Doug Yates himself was looking at closing his doors very soon under the current climate in racing and the country for that matter.

[pmossberg]

The current issue of Hot Rod magazine has a great article on the latest Ford and Dodge Sprint Cup engines. And the article has some comparisons of the R5 and R6 Dodge engines.

Interesting stuff. And really drives home how technically advanced these "old fashioned" push-rod V8s are.

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