Chatting With Director of Ford Racing Technology

You'll have to forgive Brian Wolfe while he pauses for a moment to live a dream.

Wolfe, a management veteran for the Ford Motor Company, succeeded Dan Davis as the Director of Ford Racing Technology back in June. He says that every day since the appointment has been a dream. Come to think of it, hearing Wolfe discuss his involvement with Ford, even indirectly, is proof his dream started long before his executive appointment.

Cut him and Wolfe bleeds Blue Oval Blue, something he has done since being old enough to drive. He has a drag racing background, having visited the strip just hours after procuring a driver's license.

What else would you expect from a man who once labeled Henry Ford as one of his heroes?

CompetitionPlus.com Editor/Publisher Bobby Bennett recently caught up with Wolfe during the recently completed Las Vegas event to discuss the current state of Ford’s racing endeavors among other topics.

Chatting With Director of Ford Racing Technology

You'll have to forgive Brian Wolfe while he pauses for a moment to live a dream.

Wolfe, a management veteran for the Ford Motor Company, succeeded Dan Davis as the Director of Ford Racing Technology back in June. He says that every day since the appointment has been a dream. Come to think of it, hearing Wolfe discuss his involvement with Ford, even indirectly, is proof his dream started long before his executive appointment.

Cut him and Wolfe bleeds Blue Oval Blue, something he has done since being old enough to drive. He has a drag racing background, having visited the strip just hours after procuring a driver's license.

What else would you expect from a man who once labeled Henry Ford as one of his heroes?

CompetitionPlus.com Editor/Publisher Bobby Bennett recently caught up with Wolfe during the recently completed Las Vegas event to discuss the current state of Ford’s racing endeavors among other topics.


BB – You bring to your position a wealth of high performance experience with a wealth drag racing experience …

BW- I’ve been racing since I was 16, a few hours after I got my license.

My first car was a 1969 420 Cobra Jet Fairlane, bought it when I was 15 and did some work on it.

From there, I used to race it on and off when I had the money because going to college was always tight and I didn’t get to race as much as I like. I got out of school, started a family then money was tight again.

In 1986 when I was 26, I bought a five-liter Mustang and it was a fuel injected car, it was the first year that Ford ever made the Mustang fuel injected. You see guys taking off the fuel injection and putting on carburetors and going real fast with them, but I thought it would be cool to keep the fuel injection on there and see how fast we could go with it. In about 1989, at that point I’m pushing 30 and now I have a little disposable income. So I started working on that car with the guys at SVO which is now Ford Racing. That was the first fuel injected Mustang to run in the nines, tens and elevens all naturally aspirated. Then from there the Pro 5.0 stuff started, so I raced in Pro 5.0 for a little bit; ended up going 8.30’s at about 165 miles an hour with nitrous. I still have that car to this day. I still pretty much have the same trim in the car, except now I have a Boss short block in it. That’s 374 cubic inches, four and an eighth, four and three-half stroke; it goes nine-teens at about 150 miles an hour roughly. I have that and then I go sportsman racing whenever I can.

Factory backed Pro Stock is not just in the future for us – it’s just not. - Wolfe, Speaking on the potential of a factory-backed Ford Pro Stocker 

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BB - Your background as a drag racer, does it influence the decisions you make related to racing?

SW: No, it’s an interesting thing. I think it is more like an insight I get into it. You have to make all of your business decisions using all of the information that’s available to you. Drag racing is my passion, I love it but everything has to make perfect business sense at the end of the day. I keep telling people you can’t race just for the sake of racing; companies really don’t have the money to do that. Racing is a part of marketing and sales [so] it’s our job to go out there and ensure that we’re selling more cars and trucks because of our involvement. A lot of the work that we’re doing with the John Force team and Tasca and our NASCAR teams, we have a campaign called “I’m Driving One” where we have our professional drivers drive different Fords every week and blog about them on the Internet. We offer some prizes and specials from that.

We’re using the popularity of our drivers to sell our products and that’s really what it’s all about. The Cobra Jet and the Performance Parts programs have a different twist. The Performance Parts are great because they help us sell unique versions of the Mustang much like we did with the Shelby GT. That had a lot of Ford Racing packs that were proven and engineered in Ford Racing and put on the cars as a part of our Performance Packs that are easy to install at Ford dealers or part of special edition Mustangs. That has a different piece of the business.

The Cobra Jet, it does two things, it does get more exposure and we did actually turn a profit on the cars themselves. Not a huge profit but enough to make the program viable. Also allows us to open up our catalog offerings so that racers that would start with a V-6 Mustang like our mule car that was unveiled yesterday, that started as a V-6 Mustang that we turned into a Cobra Jet.

Also knowing the history of stock class racing many of the cars you see out here, whether there’s a 427 Fairlane or a Hemi Dart, some of them may be original 427 and Hemi cars but some of them were fabricated and made to fit those classes. A lot of that will be going on if you get the right platform for the racers to work on.

BB - I learned earlier this weekend that the Ford’s NASCAR Truck series and Nationwide suffered cutbacks, is that accurate?

SW- Yes. Everything is tight and we had to do everything we could do to protect our competitiveness in Cup Racing. Working with the teams … letting them know this is important and we have great teams … I would say our engines are second to none in NASCAR. We have drivers that I’m proud to have that are great spokespeople for Ford, with Jack Roush, Doug Yates and the Wood Brothers. They’re teams that have been with us for 25 to 65 years of racing. That’s heritage, they are our partners and they have a lot of things we can make Cup Racing better with. We have to make sure through the lean times that we can still keep these guys competitive. So in the Nationwide and Truck Series we had to cut back our cash sponsorships considerably. We are still giving our technical support to help the teams with their chassis setups, with any aerodynamic work they need, with any special engine tuning needed. We are doing C-80 work to make sure we have the right torque curves. Yeah we did cut back but we did not exit those, we still have a competitive contingency program. We didn’t cut the cord and say, “see ya.”

It was just that one part that we had to cut back on.

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BB - Will there be similar cuts in drag racing?

SW - Our drag racing contracts are long term, the reason why we were able to do that with those parts of racing was because those contracts were up this year. It was a natural kind of flow for us. We did negotiate some early outs on contracts that ended next year. JTG, for example, who runs a Ford Nationwide car it’s no secret that they’ll be running a Toyota Cup car next year and they won’t be running a Ford Nationwide car after these discussions.

BB - There have been rumors about a GM/Chrysler merger would that influence Ford to become more involved in the Pro Stock division? Would that be a good thing for you?

SW - Obviously you always have to know what everyone else is doing. I spent almost 27 years in engineering and like most young engineers coming out of school, you think you know all the equations and you can figure out everything. You have to know what everyone else is doing at all times. But then you have to make your own decisions on your specific business, regardless of what happens with Chrysler and General Motors.

Factory backed Pro Stock is not just in the future for us – it’s just not. It’s part of our Performance Parts Program which is an independent program. We are now working on our Pro Stock body kit that can be used in Pro Stock, Comp Eliminator, NHRA, NMRA, NMCA and Pro Mod. A lot of people like the Mustang bodies but the one right now isn’t extremely competitive from the aerodynamics in the frontal area. So we’re going to go there and fill that void and present a competitive part and sell it through the catalog just like any other part. It will be a profitable venture.

We are also working with one of the Pro Stock racers, who is trying to run and compete in Pro Stock with parts that were made and manufactured in 1993. It’s going to be hard to even be competitive or qualify with that type of hardware. He’s asked us if he provides the financial backing if we could help him upgrade the blocks and heads in the catalog. We’ve agreed in principle and we are working through it. Here’s the perfect example to your other question, as a drag racer I was like ‘Yeah let’s get into this Pro Stock thing’ but the business side of me knows that I can’t afford it right now. If we did divert the money to do a factory backed Pro Stock deal first of all we couldn’t afford it and second of all we’d have to divert so much money that it would take away from other important parts of the business.

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BB - A lot of race fans have always wondered this for a long time, why is it that Ford sees Funny Car as being bigger in their eyes rather than Pro Stock when Pro Stock is the equivalent to NASCAR?

SW - I think right now a lot of it is about the marketing and the exposure. If you look at NHRA statistics the two very, very large names are John and Ashley Force. And Robert Hight is also holding his own and Mike Neff as well. You’ve got the Tasca name that has been in racing for about sixty years with Bob Sr., starting the win on Sunday sell on Monday type stuff. Really championship capable teams with drivers the fans love who have a lot of influence who can help sell cars and trucks and that is really what is key from a marketing perspective. Those guys are running in Funny Car right now, that’s really why we are more into Funny Car. It’s not necessarily that the value is not there for Pro Stock but it’s just that they’re racing in those categories now.

BB - The Ford nitro engine, how far do you guys plan on pushing this? Do you ultimately want to see everyone out here running this?

SW - That’s another one unfortunately that is hit with my broken record sounding business decision. Right now we’ve had a partnership with John Force Racing with that project. But we’re partners going through and as money has tightened up, we’re just trying to figure out where to go from here because it’s not finished yet. We’re both trying to figure out if we have the money to continue with the program and if so how quick and how fast. You asked me what my vision would be, that would be great if all of the engines would be based on those parts. I don’t know the path there from today.

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BB - Tell me about this Cobra Jet Super Stock thing you’ve got here.

SW - The Cobra Jet we’re trying to get that out there to get exposure to the new cars and trying to show the racers you can race something new that’s a Ford. If you get into the car it was something cool we did. It was a car that was done in about six months and the engineers on it were fantastic and the development people are doing a great job. Everyone involved are racers and enthusiasts at heart, so one we knew we had to do a car that would be a competitive stock class entry. It is a stock back end but a valid Super Stock entry as well. As delivered to the customer it comes with the 6-point chrome roll bar in it. It has everything you need to take that car straight to NHRA Tech and Tech out at a 10-flat. We have Bogart wheels on it, Goodyear drag slicks and frontrunners.

This is where the racers and enthusiasts come in. What if we engrave Cobra Jet on the wheels? Because that would be something important to the racers and the guys that want to hang on to these things. Also put the Cobra Jet emblem on the head rests. Let’s put the Cobra Jet on the tach as well. So we’re trying to do things that not only mean something to racers but can also mean something to those who collect these things. It also has parts of memories in there that people who really follow Fords will bring up many memories for them.

BB - So this is something you want to see on Barrett Jackson one day right?

SW - Yeah, we definitely do. It’s just a really cool thing and it’s our way of reaching out to the NHRA and the sportsman guys so they know we’re making things for them. One of the things they said when I was talking to Tom Compton and Graham Light, they said Ford’s always been kind of a single team interest in NHRA. When we’re involved in Pro Stock, don’t talk to us about anything else. When we’re involved in Funny Car, don’t talk to us about anything else. I think this is kind of my background where I want to be racer friendly to everybody because these guys put a lot of their own money into this. They put a lot of their own time in this to make our products look great and I really appreciate that immensely as the rest of Ford does. Along those paths we want to offer the right platforms along with NHRA. It’s not a one-time effort I don’t just want this to be a 2008 car and I don’t want the next one to be a 2048 either. I want to make this an every year thing so that we can have cars coming out every one, two model years to put out there as turn-key race cars. This is the fourth turn-key race car they have done, NHRA racers may not know about the FR-500 GT, the FR-500 Competition C, and the FR-500 S. Those were also turn-key race cars set up for a different road racing series. This year our FR-500 C won the driver’s championship, team champion, manufacturer’s championship in the Koni Challenge Series and won GT-4 in Europe with the Mustang. We kicked BMW’s ass, Porsche, Aston Martin, they all run in that class. The guys have really done a great job of keeping this thing going. We’re excited about the Cobra Jet too.