Ford's Jamie Allison vows "We will win"

  Jamie Allison, Ford's new racing boss, doesn't fit the mold: no staid corporate-type here. Think fast...and punch faster (Photo: Autostock)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   Welcome to the NASCAR South:
   Sandwiched between a plate of fried pickles and french-fried onion rings, Jamie Allison could only think of that day at the fair when he was stunned at one of the food offerings: "Fried butter?"
    "I didn't even know that was a cuisine," the new Ford racing boss was saying the other day, warming up to his new job on the NASCAR point, taking the spot filled by Brian Wolfe the past year and a half.
    Allison's life is about to become just a little more hectic. He's been in racing with Ford for more than six years now, but nothing like what he's about to face. So his dreams of a vacation in Australia – "I would love to go there....in fact I named my nine-year-old daughter Sydney" – will stay on hold for a while. And he'll have to make do with a little road biking, something he picked up while living in Colorado. Maybe Allison can catch a workout with Carl Edwards, one of his new drivers, who had to have his own bike modified to a one-pedaler while he was recuperating last year from that odd Frisbee injury.
    Jimmie Johnson as AP Athlete of the season? Maybe it should have been Lance Armstrong, who at 38 fought again for the win in the grueling Tour de France. But then that bike event has only a one-month stand, where NASCAR tries to hold headlines for more than 10 months.
    Well, maybe a long weekend trip to Mexico's Playa del Carmen...
    Or heck maybe the Baja. Ford's 150 Raptor did a pretty good Baja 1000 in 2008, though it was production class, not the wild-and-crazies. But then maybe Allison could finagle a deal with Baja king Robby Gordon, once a Ford guy, whose time with Dodge and Toyota hasn't been all that impressive. And Gordon's Hummer deal is likely history, with General Motors selling that marque to the Chinese.
    Gordon is probably pretty economical right now.
    "But, hey, you know how the car business is right now – so Ford is only in three divisions racing: NASCAR, NHRA and World Rally, with Focus and Fiestas."

    With NASCAR, Ford does Grand Am too, so Allison will be watching the Daytona 24. Grand Am is promising to Ford in more ways than one, because teams can run cars more similar to street-production cars. In fact it might be logical to have more synergies between Grand Am and NASCAR's Nationwide tour, in the muscle-car motif – after all there is the distinct question at the moment 'Does Detroit need NASCAR, or does NASCAR need Detroit more?'
  
  

  After an off-season in 2009, car owner Jack Roush is ready to win big again in NASCAR (Photo: Autostock)
  

   It is a question now whether or not Detroit really cares that much any more about NASCAR, particularly with the green movement underway in some quarters.
   Allison of course doesn't care for that question:
   "For us, NASCAR works. We have data that shows that 40 percent of all car buyers are race fans," Allison says. "And we ask 'What do you follow?' And NASCAR is number one.
  "So there is a reason why when we show up at a track we have 150,000 fans. NASCAR has 70 million fans. So by sheer numbers, fans and buyers cross.
   "And when we measure their awareness, their intention and their consideration of buying a Ford, race fans have a higher intention than non-fans."
   So what to make of NASCAR 2009, when Chevrolet dominated, and Ford was off.
   Allison dismisses that as 'last year.'
    "We know what happened last year," Allison said. "And we are looking forward, not dwelling on the past.
   "It's not the first time we've had a downturn.
   "But in nine of the last 11 years a Ford driver has finished first, second or third in NASCAR," Allison points out.
   "So when you have a blip like you had last year....we get a lot feedback from the fans 'We're sick and tired of not winning, so what are you going to do?'"
   So what is the post-mortem of NASCAR 2009 for Ford?
   Ford racers says they simply got caught going down the wrong path for a while, and by the time they realized it, it was pretty late in the season.
   That, of course, might be in part because there is only one Team Ford, with no internal competition to raise red flags, or offer alternatives.
   Might Ford's NASCAR operation have been stronger back when it was Roush versus Yates, and the two sides were definitely on opposites sides of technical issues?
   For the past several years Roush and Yates have become engineering and business partners, which may be good from the Detroit business standpoint, but perhaps questionable in terms of competition.
   Meanwhile Ford-in-Detroit is going over every simulation program and engineering tool to ensure the input is correct.
   The bottom line is that Jimmie Johnson and his teammates simply found a way to get into the corners faster and get their cars to turn better in the middle of the turn.
   And there are some questions about Ford's torque punch off the corners too.
  Ford's Greg Biffle will get a look at some of the improvements in the next few days during what is shaping up as a key Goodyear tire test at brutal Texas Motor Speedway, a test that will include NASCAR's new 'old' flat-blade rear spoiler. (Chevy's Tony Stewart, Dodge's Kurt Busch and Toyota's Brian Vickers will also be testing.)
    "Yes, competition breeds excellence," Allison concedes.
  But Allison says Ford teams have turned the corner. "The last part of last year, the last few races, the Fords were back competing.
   "And the addition of RPM (Richard Petty Motorsports, the George Gillett-owned operation, which is the old Ray Evernham Dodge operation) is really going to help, with guys like AJ Allmendinger and (crew chief) Kenny Francis and Kasey Kahne.
   "We've been with Jack Roush for a long time, and we know it's all still there. It's just there is so much science involved in racing today, and sometimes when the setup or the tools are not just quite right, it affects the performance."
   Still, the Petty-Gillett side of the equation is filled with questions. After all just one year ago Petty was announcing another merger, with Gillett, and a big shakeup. And now there's another merger and shakeup, particularly notable in the engine department, where most of the 60-odd Petty-Gillett motor men are gone. (Paul Menard, one of the Petty-Gillett-Roush-Yates drivers for 2010, in the merger, will have Slugger Labbe as his crew chief this season, in another change.)
    But Allison likes the new numbers he has to work with, taking 13 teams to Daytona.
   "Ford fights, Ford is fighting, and Ford is going to win again," Allison vows.
   But, hey, what about that new engine, the FR9, so long in development, so hotly promoted early last year, but then a no-show until late in the season, and even then a non-factor. This season starts with the FR9 still in development, Allison concedes, though he wants to start the full change over to that engine by sometime in May.
   "The good news is Len and Eddie Wood will be running the FR9 at all their races, full-bore," Allison said.
   But Allison concedes there was a lot of hype about the new engine.
   And he concedes there is the logical question 'If you're not winning with what you've got, why not bring out the new engine and see if that helps things?'
   However Allison looks at the economic side of that question: "Getting all the parts and pieces ready to support all our (13) teams.
   "You have to be able and ready to support all our teams with the new stuff properly. When we say 'Go!' all of them have to have it.
   "It's just the business side catching up with proper preparation."
   The Wood brothers may be the only team running the FR9 engine in the Daytona 500 itself. Other teams will be using the FR9 in practice and qualifying and then changing to the old motor for the 500.
    Ford won only three Sprint Cup events of the 36 in 2009. What will it take to get Ford back on track?
   Technology, sure.
   But Allison points to his head and says "Winning starts here."
   Indeed, Ford drivers seem to lose confidence as the season wore on.
   If it's the power of positive thinking that can help change things in the Ford camp, well, Allison is clearly going to provide that. He's a veritable machine-gun.
   "Somebody from within the Jack Roush camp has finished either first, second or third in nine of the last 11 years...so Jack doesn't need to be told that we have to win," Allison said. "It's in him. This guy is a born winner.
   "He's won some 260 races...and he lives racing every day. That's what he is about. Every day.
   "And look at Richard Petty. He's a winner. I just met with him for the first time the other day...and you feel his presence.
   "So what are we going to do to get back on the winning track? We are going to have the right tools; we are going to put all the right tools out there. There is really good improvement in the tools. We have to make sure our tools are more predictive of on-track performance.
    "And we have great teams. The addition of RPM is really going to add.
   "And the fourth thing here is 'the spirit of winning has to pervade.'"
  
  

  AJ Allmendinger: One of Ford's new drivers, and a man that Jamie Allison is banking on for big results (Photo: Autostock)
  

   "I'm reading this book 'Go like hell,'" Allison continues. "It chronicles the story of when, in 1963 and 1964, that Henry Ford wanted to buy Ferrari, and that didn't work. The deal broke. So he said 'Can't buy 'em...so we'll beat 'em.'
   "He set his sight on that. And in 1966, the third year, Henry Ford said, of Lemans, 'You'd better win.' And they did, displacing Ferrari.
   "And he did that four years in a row.
   "Yes, Jimmie Johnson, with four straight championships, is going in the record book.
     "But if you stare at that too long, you lose sight of what you can do.
     "We are Ford, we have the fighting spirit, we have the right teams, and we are going to win. This is a sport where you have to have the obsession. And our obsession is to win.
     "My mantra is going to be 'We will win.'"
     Okay, how many Sprint Cup victories does Allison have in mind?
    "Hey, think about Knute Rockne....," Allison replies with a grin.
     Like "Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders...but mostly from the neck up."
     Allison himself has another mantra too: "The buck stops here. And I've got a bullet-proof vest. It all boils down to this: NASCAR is a marketing vehicle -- and are we winning? And are people buying our cars because we're winning?"
     
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   Greg Biffle: The fastest man in NASCAR, and he needs to win...after a winless 2009 (Photo: Autostock)
   

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