Brian Wolfe, director, Ford North American Motorsports, was last night's Newsmaker on my The Race Reporters show. Dustin Long, Larry Henry and Bob Margolis joined me in the questioning and for the journalists' roundtable.
Wolfe said he's in favor of fuel injection for NASCAR engines, that Ford will debut its new Cup engine before this season is finished, and that technical assistance is available to teams which might want to change manufacturers for the 2010 season. As for the No. 1 reason Ford remains committed to motorsports, Wolfe said:
"The main selling point in all of motorsports is about marketing. We have a couple of different metrics we use. J.D. Powers has a survey and we also have an internal survey. What we find in both of those surveys is somewhere between 45 and 50 percent of people that are market-active are race fans. So, if you want to appeal to a large portion of the car-buying public, racing is a great way to do that. Also, then, you look at the favorable opinion of Ford Motor Co. for race fans vs. non-race fans, we see that we get a significant improvement. It's just working."
Listen to the entire show using this link:
http://www.modavox.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=40516
Upcoming show guests:
August 26 -- Newsmaker: Ashley Force Hood. Panelists: Holly Cain, Jeff Wolf, Bobby Bennett.
September 2 -- Newsmaker: Joey Logano. Panelists: Mark Armijo, John Sturbin. Plus Mike Dunn to preview the U.S. Nationals.
September 9 -- Newsmaker: Scott Pruett. Panelists: John Oreovicz, Jeremy Shaw, Jim Pedley.
P.S. -- Thank you to "West Coast Kenny on the Daly Planet" for his blog technical advice. Now, you can click on the TRR logo at the top and go directly to the show page.
[ more next Tuesday . . . ]
