Q: With their win at Pomona, the Reher-Morrison program seems to have stepped up with its performance.

A: The engines they race with, as far as from a power standpoint, are the same engines they sell. They don't save all of the best parts for their race team and they race you head to head - they don't ask their customers to let them win just because they're selling engines. We're just very impressed with the fact that they're running so well and they're making so much power. We're also impressed with how well their business is run. It's really a clean program the way they're doing it and we're very proud of those guys. They're doing it in a non-traditional way, the way you want to see it."

Q: What sort of work is being done with the Ecotec powerplant?

A: The Ecotec is GM's four-cylinder, 2.2-liter global powerplant that we're using with our front-wheel drive program. That program is running parallel with the 500 cubic-inch engine program we use in Pro Stock. We're making over 700 horsepower with the Ecotec four-cylinder engine right now, so we're really excited about the potential with our front-wheel drive program. We've found that it's extremely difficult to get a front-wheel drive car to launch and stay up on the power curve, and if you look at the way the competition runs over there right now, there's a lot of opportunity to go into this field and do well. We're hoping to eliminate some of the turbo lag we see in the class with the rpms dropping off after the driver launches the car, and then having to build back up. If you look at the way some of the major competitors are running in that class right now, there's a real opportunity for someone who can come in, get a car to go up to the red line and stay there for all five gears. If we can pull this off, we'll be looking at the same success in that series that we've had in NHRA for the last five years.

Q: Is there a technology transfer between the front-wheel program and Pro Stock?

A: There's a technology transfer from a safety standpoint and from an aerodynamic standpoint. When you get beyond those two things they are two totally different animals. With the front-wheel drive program, we started with the Cavalier Pro Stock body and there were some obvious differences. One, the wheel clearance for the front-wheel drive car was too small in the front and too large in the back. Once we got past that, there were some differences in the front lift of the car with the transmission, the engine and the slicks up front, so there was some technology transfer there. With the Chevy Cavalier, we had a Pro Stock body that was good at 204 mph so that was a good baseline for a 160-mph front-wheel drive racecar that's going to run a quarter in eight and a half seconds.

Q: How has the introduction of the Grand Am and the Cavalier been beneficial to NHRA Pro Stock competition?

A: Aerodynamically, something that really helped us was the NHRA rules change that allowed the Pro Stock bodies to be molded - a mold for the front end, a mold for the roof and a mold for the rear quarter-panel. In the past, when I first took this job, we had to use a production vehicle's roof, a production vehicle's quarter-panels, and headlights, taillights, those kind of things. We spent a lot of time on the design of the Cavalier and the Grand Am and were able to come up with a mold that dictated the shape. The only aspects that change with the chassis builders is how the body is mounted to the chassis, and how well they flush things out as far as the windshield to body, and side glass to body and things of that nature. The variability is gone.

We spent a lot of time developing the shape of the two cars. Then we brought two of the teams' race cars, one of each, into the wind tunnel just to double-check that they were the same as the development bodies that we had and they were. As long as the cars are "x" number of inches from the ground to the front fascia, and "x" number of inches from the ground to the rocker panels, they're all the same.

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