Dale Jarrett took the new Fusion for a spin at Atlanta this week. Credit: Autostock

Fusion a step toward 'Car of Tomorrow'

A couple of weeks ago, Ford Motor Company announced to the world that the Fusion would be its replacement for the venerable Taurus in NASCAR competition.

That was step one in the process toward getting the new car to be noticed by the public. Step two took place on Tuesday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

It was the first track test for the new mount, and Dale Jarrett handled the driving duties, while Wood Brothers Racing supplied the car.

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Flash back to 2000 when Dodge rejoined the NASCAR series after many years on the sidelines. There's a distinct parallel.

The Dodge Intrepid was introduced to much fanfare at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. Accompanied by several busloads of media, the Intrepid took its first laps of Homestead at the hands of Kyle Petty.

This is one test where the speeds don't really matter -- it's all about the marketing, baby.

Ford's test Tuesday took place in front of NASCAR officials, and it was a critical part of the approvals process for NASCAR and Ford. Following the test, which took place at around 1:15 p.m., the car was scheduled to go to the Lockheed wind tunnel in nearby Marietta, where it underwent the third and final step of the approvals process.

Jarrett, who is also a car dealer of fairly major proportions (those of you in Charlotte have heard commercials for Dale Jarrett Ford, the "88th Wonder of the World") had this to say after his maiden run in the new racer:

"I think what we've done with the Fusion is that we built a car that's going to be very nice on the race track, but it's going to be one that the public will go to a dealership and want to buy," he said. "That's what we want to achieve --something we can win with on Sunday and the public will buy on Monday."

There's that phrase again.

Greg Specht, who is operations manager for Ford Racing Technology, said he was happy with the test, and that the day couldn't have gone better.

"We did the minimum amount of laps that were required to demonstrate the car's capability to NASCAR and it performed flawlessly," he said. "We even beat the rain, so I'm happy with the way things worked out."

The approvals process is more than just pulling up at NASCAR headquarters, pulling the tarp off the car and saying, "What do you think?" A lot of thought goes into the development of the racecar, especially given the limited capacity for branding in what has become a common template series.

Fusion unveilingDrivers on hand for the unveiling of the 2006 Ford Fusion Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Now that the Fusion has been built and submitted, all that's left is for NASCAR to get back with the car maker with any final changes and the car will be ready for final approval. The wind tunnel will reveal how close the three makes -- Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet -- are in terms of aerodynamics.

NASCAR will match the makes as closely as possible and incorporate the new Fusion into its template program for 2006. Now that Ford has picked its model, it can gear its advertising and promotions toward the model as it did the Taurus in 1998.

The keys to marketing a new model lie in the styling cues that manage to make it past the NASCAR approvals process. The nose, the tail and the rear window openings are about all that can be "styled" these days, and that has to do from a marketing standpoint.

All of this has to be measured against the impending arrival of the "Car of Tomorrow", as NASCAR has dubbed its redesign of the basic stock car. Rumored to be set for a 2007 rollout, the Car of Tomorrow specs figured heavily into the choice of the Fusion for Ford.

Likely, so did the arrival of Dodge's Charger and Chevrolet, which spends a pile of money on the Allstate 400 at The Brickyard, will be moving toward that goal when it unveils its new 2006 Monte Carlo this weekend.

Of course, there's more than choosing a nameplate and making a race car out of it. Dodge found that out with the ill-fated Magnum in the late 1970s. Picked as the successor to the incredibly successful Charger, the Magnum was never able to live up to the Charger's hefty reputation, despite the best efforts of Petty Enterprises.

Richard Petty was forced to bail on the Magnum in 1979 and went to Pontiac, where the team stayed until it rejoined Dodge in 2000.

The Fusion, according to Jarrett, went a long way toward solving the Taurus tendency to plow the corners, which means that the designers did their jobs before the car ever got to the approvals process.

"I think the biggest thing we fight with the Taurus is if we get enough downforce in the rear to make it to where we can drive at tracks like Atlanta, getting into the corner, then usually we fight a problem of the front end not sticking as good as we need," Jarrett said. "It wants to lift up. This car seems to have a better balance about it. That's what we were trying to achieve with the Fusion, and I think we've done that."

One other business aspect of the first track test of the Fusion came from Ford Racing. Eddie Wood, co-owner of the Wood Brothers team, said the car came in a little early, which is good for business. The fact that the car was finished ahead of schedule makes it much easier for the marketing and promotions departments to crank into high gear.

The Woods also did the development work on the Taurus, and were early with that one too. Ford Racing (in the persons of Bernie Marcus and Ben Leslie) did a really good job; they had a timetable to meet and we actually got the car in a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, so we are pretty happy with that," Wood said. "We did the last submission car Ford did, and with the Fusion being the new model for next year, it's pretty special."

What's special about the Fusion, before it ever turns a wheel in competition, is that all aspects of the Ford Racing team hit their marks and did it according to plan, which is tough to do even if you've been racing stock cars since NASCAR began.