BUSCH: Ford Cosworth Racing To Enter NASCAR

PPI Motorsports to Lease Engines for McDonald's Racing Busch Program

DEARBORN, Mich., October 22, 1999 -- Cosworth Racing, the legendary builders of championship winning Formula One and CART engines, will soon add another form of engine building to its dossier - NASCAR. For the 2000 NASCAR Busch Grand National season, Cosworth will produce engines for PPI Motorsports and its McDonald's Racing NASCAR Busch Series team.

Since Ford purchased Cosworth last year, the two companies have been exploring ways to expand Cosworth's mode of operation and develop avenues in which Ford's racing program can benefit from its vast engineering and manufacturing knowledge. NASCAR was a logical fit.

"We see Cosworth's entrance into NASCAR as a benefit to the entire Ford NASCAR program," said Greg Specht, Ford Racing Technology's North American Racing Operations Manager. "Currently there are very few Ford teams in the Busch series right now. We are confident Cosworth will make our NASCAR Busch series program even more competitive, and hopefully convert additional teams to Ford," said Specht.

The NASCAR Busch program will be run out of Cosworth's Torrance, Calif., shop under the direction of Ian Bisco, vice-president, Cosworth Racing. "We are very excited to be starting this new chapter in Cosworth's history," said Bisco. "However, we have our work cut out for us. We realize we are going to be behind in certain areas, and experience counts for an enormous amount in NASCAR, but we see tremendous potential in the details of the engine design we think we can exploit."

Teams of engineers working out of Cosworth's Torrance facility and their Northhampton, England, headquarters will be involved in the development of the Cosworth NASCAR Busch engine program.

The decision to dedicate a team of engineers to the NASCAR Busch engine program in Northhampton was made to capitalize on, and draw from the knowledge gained, in Cosworth's the CART and Formula One programs.

"We have specialists in valve train design, specialists in cranks and rods, specialists in fueling, and most of them are based in Northhampton. So we thought it was necessary to have a group of engineers working in England to draw from the knowledge of those teams," said Bisco.

The long-term goal of Cosworth's entry into the NASCAR Busch series is to strengthen Ford's NASCAR engine program as a whole. Cosworth will act as a developer of parts and pieces for Ford's NASCAR engine program and develop components available to all Ford teams running the Taurus.