Dodge, Chevrolet and Ford will have rolled out new models to match their racing counterparts by next season. Credit: Autostock

Win on Sunday, sell on Monday

As Ford gets set to debut its replacement for the Taurus, remember one thing: It's about the brand.

That's all it's about for manufacturers. Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet are in NASCAR for the same thing, and that's to leverage victories on Sunday into sales on Monday. That's an old axiom, dating back to the 1950s and NASCAR's early days, but it's still true today.

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Ford and Chevrolet have been battling each other ever since Henry Ford and Carl Fisher, et al, started the companies back in the early days of the 20th Century, and each company, through the vision of its founders, saw the same thing: racing is a way to prove to the average Joe Six-pack that our product is superior.

The same holds true for oil companies, tire companies and pretty much any company that makes performance parts or cars that wind up on race tracks around the world. If your product can hold up to the rigors of high-speed competition, you can trumpet that success to folks who have money to lay down for a new car, oil filter, engine, etc.

As Ford gets set to unveil the new Fusion, remember also that Dodge introduced its Charger this season, and Chevrolet will take the cover off its redesigned Monte Carlo later this year as well.

The Taurus, Ford's current steed, began its NASCAR career in 1998 as a replacement for the vastly successful Thunderbird. Dodge returned to the sport in 2001 with the Intrepid, and the Monte Carlo, long known as the performance model from Chevrolet -- not including the Corvette, of course -- replaced the Lumina.

If you think that the auto manufacturers don't take this stuff seriously, think again. Everything, it seems, from race victories to series titles to Manufacturer's Titles and even which automaker supplies official vehicles to various tracks, is a competition.

Ford and Chevrolet have dominated NASCAR, both in the modern era -- when the schedule was cut to around 30 races a season -- and overall. As of last weekend's race at Chicagoland, Ford has won 562 races to 556 for Chevrolet. That's pretty amazing for as many years as the two have been going at it.

In the modern era, Chevrolet has the upper hand over Ford, 437-238.

In NASCAR's history, 15 car makes have visited Victory Lane. Besides Ford and Chevy, the others are Plymouth (191), Dodge (185), Pontiac (154), Oldsmobile (115), Mercury (95), Hudson (79), Buick (65), Chrysler (59), AMC (5), Lincoln (4), Studebaker (3), Nash (1) and Jaguar (1).

Add all those together and you get the following totals: GM (Chevy, Buick, Olds and Pontiac) 890; Ford (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury) 662; and DaimlerChrysler (Dodge, Plymouth, Hudson, Chrysler, AMC, Studebaker and Nash) 523.

Don't think for a moment that folks in Detroit, Dearborn and Auburn Hills don't know those figures off the tops of their heads: they do, and each day is an exercise in staying ahead of or catching up to their rivals.

Manufacturers do other things with their racing programs, too, like implement new safety gear, develop new engineering paths and train engineers and process managers in a pretty rough school.

As with nearly everything in NASCAR these days, there's also a marketing component. How many commercials have you seen for the Big Three touting an accomplishment on the track, in the wind tunnel or in the standings?

The Manufacturer's Championship is the prime vehicle for these ... vehicles. Chevrolet has an overwhelming 28-15 lead over Ford in this category, winning all but six of the last 20. Part of this is due to the quality of the teams running a certain manufacturer's cars, and part of it is the number of cars in each camp.

This season, nearly half the field (20 or so) is Chevrolet, while Ford has 15 or 16 and Dodge typically has eight to 10. Engineering support, cash and development budgets play a key role in how many teams use a particular car. Top-tier teams like Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, Roush, Robert Yates, Evernham and Penske Racing South derive plenty of funding from their relationship with their manufacturers, while single-car teams and those less affluent than the big guys get less, if any.

To sum it all up, manufacturers use motorsports for a variety of reasons, nearly all of them having to do with brand identity, marketing, engineering and market share. With the impending addition of Toyota to the mix, this is likely to become more important than ever. There's never been a Japanese manufacturer involved in Nextel Cup Series racing, and the first one should provide some interesting comparisons for the future.

It's all about the brand, after all.