Q: Can you talk about the overall improvement of the GM race teams this year?

A: It's been terrific and we're all very proud of the teams that chose to compete in GM racecars. We've had Warren (Johnson) helping us develop new GM Performance Parts for quite some time, getting a lot of dyno runs with GM equipment and subsequently winning his sixth championship. But now you have people like Tom Martino, Mark Pawuk, Jim Yates, Reher-Morrison, Ron Krisher, and Jeg and Troy Coughlin getting a lot of dyno pulls with GM parts. It's the never-ending work that Warren talks about, and the hours and hours behind the scenes that the other guys are starting to accumulate. Mark (Pawuk) committed his engine development program to the DRCE2, the new cylinder heads, about three years ago, and now their program is starting to get enough time with those parts to where they're able to harvest all the power that they can possibly get. The rest of the pack may not dyno test as much as Warren, but they've had enough time with the same parts to where they're all putting out about the same amount of power.

Now you have to look at who has the strongest teams as far as being able to read the track, deciding which clutch settings to use, how to adjust their rear suspensions and that sort of thing. The drivers have always been pretty good and now their reaction times are starting to improve as well. Through some pretty thorough research, we found that many of the problems with reaction times weren't a matter of the driver not doing his job, it was a matter of getting the racecar to launch quickly.

We've had our drivers attend seminars with Frank Hawley, probably three in the last four years, where the car's reaction time and the driver's reaction time were measured. We found that many times the problem was with the car and not the fact that a driver was slowing down because of age. The guys have the driving under control, and the engine teams have rung out about everything they can with the DRCE and the DRCE2. If you look at the incremental numbers, we still have a mismatch at about half-track on with the Neons, so we're looking into the development of the DRCE3 in order to regain that parity.

Q: What is the plan for the GM DRCE3 (Drag Racing Competition Engine) development program?

A: We're in conversation right now with our race teams and they are analyzing proposals for a new cylinder-head program - we'll make a decision soon on which direction to go. By utilizing our different race teams, we can bring the new DRCE3 technology up to speed much more quickly. Part of being a GM factory team is helping to develop new technology and new parts, and next year everyone will be working hard to make that happen. By the season's halfway mark our new engine program should be up and running strong.

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