THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 5, 1995 TAG: 9504050608
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
It wasn't quite the stuff of television talk shows, but the debate became contentious Tuesday when Ford's Dan Rivard and General Motors' Herb Fishel discussed the Ford-Chevy battle in Winston Cup racing during a teleconference.
Rivard and Fishel are the manufacturers' top racing executives. And after congratulating each other on their respective successes (Fishel cited Ford's Indy-car victories and Rivard made note of Chevy's NASCAR wins), Rivard wasted little time in becoming confrontational.
He pointed out that the shape of a NASCAR race car is supposed to be based on the shape of a production vehicle. The new Monte Carlo race cars, Rivard said, have some significant differences from the production models.
``It's such a competitive series, very minor changes can mean a whole lot,'' Rivard said. ``That there are some major variations in the Monte Carlo, that's for NASCAR and Chevy to deal with.''
It's not that the Ford teams are slacking off, he said. The top-qualifying Ford is 3.276 mph faster, on average, than last year. But the top qualifying Chevy is 4.581 mph faster, and that's 1.305 mph faster than the Ford.
``They're to be congratulated for that,'' Rivard said, taking pains not to criticize NASCAR. ``We're just going to have to work harder.''
But after Fishel talked about the shortcomings of last year's Lumina as a race car and played down the significance of aerodynamics in the overall picture, Rivard again went on the offensive.
``The Lumina was really competitive with us,'' Rivard said, pointing out that it had won several manufacturer's championships. ``And as to the Monte Carlo being a better car, I wonder why the Monte Carlo fits all the NASCAR templates (which measure the body shape of race cars) but two, but those two give quite a large advantage. . . .''
Fishel responded: ``As far as those templates you keep referring to, . . . exceptions were made in the best interest of safety and the sport.'' He added that the only changes were to widen the rear end so the NASCAR-required spoiler would fit.
``Those exceptions also happen to be in the right direction for maximum aerodynamic performance,'' Rivard said.
Fishel then went on the attack.
``I'd like to ask Dan a question,'' he said. Fishel wanted to know if the Ford Thunderbird fit all of NASCAR's templates.
``The production car and the race car fit those templates exactly,'' Rivard replied. But he noted that NASCAR had allowed Ford to modify the side door last month.
``There are exceptions, then, to the production car,'' Fishel said.
Rivard replied, ``The production car matches the templates and the race car matches exactly the same templates.''
It was an ususual head-to-head debate between two manufacturer's executives who usually let their underlings, or their race teams, do the talking.
But they agreed that it would be improper to reveal anything about NASCAR's comparative wind-tunnel tests last week. And Rivard said he would not say anything about what changes Ford might request from NASCAR to make the Thunderbird more competitive with the Monte Carlo, which has won all six races so far this year. by CNB