Ford and Pro Stock
 

From Pomona, Ford will no longer support Pro Stock! Just not important!
Stay tuned.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

otherwise spelled as "we can't get competitive"

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I bet they sell lots of Fords by sponsoring John Forces fuel ha ha cars........lol

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Sure leaves Morgan and others hung out to dry...I thought Morgan did a pretty good job on the motor program. Sorry to hear this for the blue oval faithful. Think about Mark Wolfe who just stepped up to the plate and now his investment is hurt badly.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

They the Ford execs think they do, just shows how far off the planet they are! Spending 3.0 mil + on Funny Cars!

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

The tide is changing. If Ford is getting out of PS, Funny Car will be next. They obviously see no value in it anymore. Realistically, the Stock/SS Cobra Jets put more back onto their bottom line, at least they get to rob you 100 large to buy one.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Sad deal for Morgan.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

:confused::confused::confused: It looks like this is the first step, if true, towards making it an all G.M. series. At Pomona there were 13 G.M. cars (1 Cobalt and 12 GXPs), 4 Ford (all Mustangs) and 3 Mopar (all Avengers). If Ford withdraws, how long before Mopar is not there also. What a shame for all the work Larry Morgan has put into the program and now with Mark Wolfe stepping in the hunt, BUMMER.The best part of Pro Stock for me is the diversity of cars. Take that away and how boring it will become. Each event will be only to see which G.M. car wins and move on to the next event. I still love looking at old videos of Bob Glidden kicking MAJOR BUTT with a Ford. Bring back the old days of Pro Stock. G.M. vs. Mopar vs. Ford and an occasional AMC. Just my 2 cents, which these days ain't worth nothin'.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

GM does not even build Colbalts or GXP cars any more.I guess the saying win on sunday and sell on monday has gone out the window.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Ford and NHRA Pro Stock, for the next 1000 years, can be defined by only one image:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3207/...ed17a82469.jpg

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

A field with Challengers and Camaros would have helped fan interest and possibly evened up the aerodynamics with the Mustang. Were the Fords "downsized" to help them be competitive against the other smaller cars?

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Ralph, is this a rumor, or in print ? If this is true, this is bad.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

No disrespect to Bob Glidden, but I think one could argue that Warren Johnson's and Lee Shepherd 's images could define NHRA Pro Stock just as well.

Let's not forget Shepherd was ruling the roost at the time of his death.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I rarely watch the ESPN coverage of NHRA 'Pro's' anymore for a variety of reasons, namely the fact I have lots of other things I would rather do than watch the 'John Force Reality Show'.

Several people have commented that PS coverage has dwindled on ESPN over the past couple of years, perhaps Ford noticed this too along with lots of empty seats at the races and decided PS is no longer worth the investment.

A couple of years ago Terry named PS 'Pro Funny Stock', and aptly so imo. The cars look nothing at all like what is in the show room. IMO the sanctioning bodies would be much better off featuring the new cars as 'Pro Stock'.

I guess the blown cars could be 'Pro Modified Stock'.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Yeah, Chad, it's hard to be competitive with a level playing field, instead of with a blower and/or a bogus hp rating........I'll bet they lobbied nhra for a low horsepower rating. It must have been denied!

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I'd say qualified #5 is competitive. In fact, just qualifying in that class means you must be doing something right.

I don't think Ford did much for Morgan (or anyone else) in Pro Stock. Read someplace it was mostly engineering stuff but could be wrong. They didn't do much for Glidden in the old days either and that's why he got out of it. As for Mark Wolfe, he only had a couple race deal with Morgan's motor. I heard he will be running in Comp next year

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Morgan should have been competitive right out of the box. The Ford motor is just a Hemi99 with the spark plug moved around some.

I thought Ford wasn't really putting up money anyway, the money was mainly from Cunningham?

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

the info I got..............was that FORD wasnt sponsoring him anyways, it was just cunningham footing the bill on R and D............so why is this a suprise.........I dont think FORD will ever be a "FORCE" in Pro Stock unless they sponsor somebody in that class... I hate that for morgan, cunningham, and the other ford guys..

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

The blocks and heads are already developed. Hopefuly they all can do r&d on their own. Mark Wolfe today said he is planning on running Pro Stock stll next year.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I think Ford gets more press, which is name recognition, which turns into sales with the CJ's than anything they could EVER get with a P/S team. Those CJ sales are turning some into GT500 sales and Boss 302 sales.
I'd LOVE to have a new Boss 302.
See the 2013 Mustang line released today? GT500 with standard 5.8L and 650 HP and 200 MPH top end speed? Can you say "bye, bye ZL-1"!
And Ford racers, the GT500 now comes with a carbon fiber driveshaft. Sounds like a superseded part in the making!

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

All of you do realise that GM is not supporting Pro Stock either and has not for a few years right? Yet a GM won the championship this year... WHY do you think Ford not funding teams is going to kill Larry's program when he has not got one dollar from them anyway? As Ford racers we know it's up to us to fund our deals and we WILL make it work. The factorys have very little to do with Pro Stock......The factorys DO NOT do the R&D,the TEAMS do. The best thing the factorys do is help with aero stuff by letting the teams use the wind tunnel. And Ford has done that for Larry.

I'm going to do the best I can to run PS next season but it's TOTALLY up to me to find the funding to do so,not Ford...Would I like to see Ford step up and fund a few Pro Stock teams? YES,but I understand why it will not happen. It's more about inside Ford politics then anything else.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

No disrespect to you, Michael,,but if you're going to honor the late great Pro Stock champion, spell his name correctly: Lee Shepherd,, and you're right, he was ruling the roost at the time of his fatal crash.
Go to Youtube: " Steve Evans on Lee Shepherd" this video was at the next national event following Lee's demise.
Danny Durham

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Spelling is corrected. Thank you for pointing out my mistake, Danny.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I hope our spelling mistakes never mis-type anything.

Guess autocorrect changed a mis-typed "mistakes" to something dirty. lol
I should pay more attention. Sorry.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

But they (Ford) does support the NASCAR teams to the tune of about 5 million per car per year!

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Yes but any big corporation (or any well run business for that matter) aims to spend their advertising money to get the most exposure for the buck. It would be hard to justify expenditures in present day NHRA drag racing when you compare the difference between the 10's of thousands of spectators at a Nascar Sprint Cup race and the spectator attendance at an NHRA national event. Yes, NASCAR attendance is down but the sanctioning body is taking proactive measures to reverse the trend. Not that it is soley NHRA's responsibility but you can't even compare the two sanctioning bodies when it comes to the marketing, preservation and expansion of the sports they individually regulate. The lower "classes" in NASCAR (truck, short track and grassroots, etc.) have not even come close to the level of degradation that the NHRA Sportsman categories have experienced, not entirely but largely due to business and common sense proactive measures taken by the sanctioning body. Whenever a regulatory agency choses to ignore a sizeable faction of it's knowledgeable member population it is rare that a declining scenario improves. Sad but true.... JMHO

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Pro Stock is in need of a change anyway, they should be flat hoods with FI, 375 ci. No one can relate to 500 ci with 2 x4 carbs anymore. Funny cars with doors!
Casey Miles
248H Stock?

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Very good post on one of the problems with NHRA today.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

That's a great point which clicked on a light bulb in my brain.

In the early 50s, Zora Arkus Duntov wrote a letter to the big wigs at Chevrolet. He strongly made the case that the key to making the brand a performance icon (remember, at this time all they made were six cylinders) was to make inexpensive parts which would allow anyone to hop up their small block.

We got Duntov cams, big valve heads, intakes, and more. That was a stroke of genius, and the rest is history.

Why do we see so many Camaros in Stock and Super Stock? Because they follow Duntov's premise: fairly cheap (at least at one time), good performance, and easily available parts.

So here it is in 2011 and we have the same concept, of a manufacturer providing hard core racing parts to the masses. Except this time it's Ford.
They are the only OEM that cares about drag racing and it shows.

Keeping with the spirit of the thread, in my mind a carbon fiber driveshaft sold to anyone is much more significant than a hand-built Pro Stock car or two.

Unless one of the other manufacturers decides to compete, I would wager big money that the Mustangs will be the dominant cars 10 or 20 years from now and appear in the big numbers that Camaros do now.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Great post, Dan.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Good post Jimi.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Lets face it the best you can say about the bodies on funny cars and pro stocks are, they look cartoonish. The beauty of pro stock in the early days, and funny car to an extent, were the bodies were recognizable . You didn't have to slap the name on the front of the thing to tell me what make it was.
Nhra needs to start over again with a rules package that makes sense for the manufacturers as well as the spectating public. That means in pro stock, stock bodies and production style engines. Funny car needs to adopt rules closer to the nostalgia funny cars.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

That was Jim B, not Jimi B lol.


But none the less Id put my name on what he said lol

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Got it wrong sorry to both of you guys.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Hard to tell new cars apart from a distance on the street. I don't see Pro Stock being any worse than Comp or the new SS/GT cars. How different can you make one jelly bean look from another anyway?

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Put F/I on them so that you get rid of the idiotic looking whale sized hood scoops.That would be a start to bringing them back to looking like the street model.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

The same can be said for Comp/Super Stock GT cars. The huge scoops are hideous and I wonder just how much they help. Cracks me up to see a 12 second bracket car with a scoop as tall as the windshield. And while we are scoop bashing, pick one style will ya!

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

So true....
It amazes me how many people do not realize that some car labels on those Pro Stocks are not even produced anymore.

LOL....Pontiac wins on Sunday and dies a corporate death on Monday. :rolleyes:

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

I think you are overlooking one big factor,DOLLARS.. Look at the sponsorship that you have on cars running in NASCAR. The sponsors are huge companies with deep pockets. I don't see the big sponsorship dollars at NHRA PRO STOCK in order to offset the cost of running these cars. The Japanese have never shown an interest in PRO STOCK. If the national sponsors dry up for NASCAR then you will see factory interest decline. I also think that the new car manufacturers would be more inclined to support PRO STOCK if the new cars looked like what you can buy in the show room and used engines, fuel injection and superchargers that are available to the public. The Japanese and some American manufacturers might gain interest with turbos on small displacement motors. The manufacturers cannot relate to 500 cubic inches and 2x4 carbs and a narrowed,chopped and lengthened car. The Mustang, Camaro and Dodge are easily recognized on the street but not at the drag strip. PRO STOCK is going to have to reinvent itself or sadly it will probably be gone. They have lost the fans and now do not attract the big sponsorship dollars. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Ford and Pro Stock
 

Gee I wonder what took em so long. As far as I know, I was the first drag racer to run a carbon fiber driveshaft. That was in 1990 !!!