Dale Jarrett (left) with crew chief Mike Ford Credit: Autostock

Tech Q&A: Mike Ford

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Dale Jarrett has shown marked improvement in his 2004 performance vs. where he and the Robert Yates Racing team were the past couple of seasons.

One of the big reasons was the addition of crew chief Mike Ford, the soft-spoken leader who came from Bill Elliott's Evernham Motorsports team in the off-season.

As the Nextel Cup Series heads to Michigan International Speedway for the GFS Marketplace 400, Jarrett and the No. 88 Ford have improved 15 spots in the points over 2003.

Ford recently spoke with NASCAR.COM's Lee Montgomery about getting around the two-mile Michigan track and about how he and Jarrett plan on improving.

Michigan, a lot of times, seems to be a fuel-mileage race. With a green-white-checkered, does that the change the strategy at all? Do you guys think anymore about that?

Mike Ford: You think about the green-white-checkered, but you can't change the way you call a race for it.

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The cautions are going to fall when they fall. You can't wish the fuel mileage to be better.

We really haven't seen any fuel-mileage races this year. To change the strategy going into the race, I don't think that's going to happen. But you do keep in the back of your mind when the closing laps are coming down if you are close on fuel.

So if you're close - say there are 30 laps to and that's how much fuel you have left - and there's a green-white-checkered, you just react to it?

Ford: Yeah. You can't wish things to happen. You're stuck in situations like that, and you have make calls.

You have to gamble at times. You try to be as smart as you can, depending on where you're running on the racetrack. If you feel like you can save some fuel, and it's going to be tight, then obviously you try and save some.

But very rarely, coming down to 30 laps to go, do you have the option of saving fuel. It's time to race at that point. If the caution comes out, then you have to know where you're at and what you're possibilities are. You may have to stop. You never know.

Last week after finishing second and third, both Dale and Elliott said their cars were "maxed out." What do you think they were referring to?

Ford: Going to Indianapolis, you take your best equipment - which everyone in the field takes.

You take your best stuff, and you prepare for it. You prepare to race. Not many people go there and work on qualifying trim. You go there and work on the race, because it's a very important race for us.

Our cars were very close, balance-wise. We feel like that was pretty much everything we had. Best engines we ever had, those were both of the best cars we ever built. That was our best package right there.

So when you go back there next year, some might say there is nothing else for you guys to gain. Or are the gains just so small that you have to attack it a little different?

Ford: No. By the time we go to Michigan, we'll have better equipment. It moves at an incredible pace.

If you take the same car back there next year, you probably wouldn't make the race.

This sport moves incredibly fast, and it's who can move the fastest and can make the best decisions the most accurately who wins the races.

Our equipment is getting better each and every week, and we feel we are on a good learning curve right now. For the time that we had at Indianapolis, that was our best equipment, but we'll have better stuff going to Michigan, I'm sure.

What are some of the areas that get better every week? Engines? Aero? Chassis?

Ford: Everything is. You can't sit still on anything. You have to be searching for better aero, you've got to be searching to get weight out of cars, you've got to be searching for horsepower, you've got to be searching for tenths of a second on your pit crew, the driver's got to hone his skills. You can't sit still on any one area.

You have to keep moving forward.

The aero stuff that you guys chase, where are some areas you're looking to gain some more downforce?

Ford: You're open to everything. You start off with a baseline car. Very rarely do you build a car that you never make changes to.

You build a car, and you improve it as you run. Each time you run a car, it ought to be better than the last.

You make adjustments all over the car. To say you look at one area any more than another, if you do that, you're close-minded to what can happen.

Are the gains getting smaller as you go along, aero-wise? Or are there still bigger areas to get?

Ford: It depends on where you're at on the learning curve. At the beginning of this year, I came over and started working on the Fords, and the gains we made were very large from what they had in the past year. They were extremely large gains.

Periodically, you'll find a 10- or 12-count gain. To say the big gains are gone, I don't think that's the case.

The majority of time, you are looking at 1s and 2s, but occasionally, you do get a double-digit game.

When you talk about a count, how does that translate into a pound of downforce?

Ford: It doesn't. You can't really correlate it that way. It's real general. Each car is a little different size. It's real complicated. You can't really convert it to pounds. One count on one car may be different on another car.

The engines are stressed every week, but at Michigan, you're hitting 200 mph at the end of the straightaway with the rpms up a long time. Are they stressed there as much as anywhere else?

Ford: The engines don't mind running and accelerating up through rpm range. When you start having problems is when they start becoming more of a stead-state rpm at high rpm.

Michigan, you drop very few rpms in the corner, so all day long, you're running in high rpms, and that's what makes Michigan difficult. It's a 400-mile race, but you see a lot of engine failures there. It's because the steady-state rpm is a lot greater there than most anywhere you go.

Is that the one thing that worries you most?

Ford: I'm more of a chassis guy. I let Doug (Yates) and those guys worry about the engines. I know our restrictions and our limitations.

I don't lose any sleep over the engines because I know they're bringing durable pieces. They try an ensure we run all day. That is a major concern going to Michigan.

Do you back off in practice at all? Run fewer laps?

Ford: Yeah, you do try to not turn the engine as hard in practice. If the car's good, you have the option to not run as many laps in practice.

But if you feel like you need to work on the car, you can run more laps. If you're good in practice, you can turn it less, you can run fewer laps to try and save it for Sunday.

Tech Q&A runs every Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET on NASCAR.COM.