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A five-axis CNC mill is cutting a foam buck for the first Stratus carbon fiber female mold.

The mill is performing the finish cut on the foam model for the first Stratus carbon fiber female mold. The mold itself is constructed from fiberglass and epoxy and is assembled and supported by a large steel skeleton.

Once completed, the final version was put on a chassis and shipped up to NRC's full-size tunnel in Ottawa, Canada for final testing.

"The funny car wants to move around," says DeKoninck, "they want to use an extra 20 feet of every 1320-foot length, so we worked hard at getting the Stratus to stay stuck to the racing surface. We worked hardest on the downforce -- in the front so the driver could steer it, and in the rear to prevent tire spin and maintain stability."

Happy with the final numbers, the factory-designed bodies ended up on the Don Schumacher entries of Whit Bazemore and Gary Scelzi for 2003. Bazemore has taken his

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Lee Beard-tuned machine to three finals as of this date, including winning at Englishtown (which was also the place where Scelzi posted the unofficial fastest speed in history at 326.95). The factory, which used CATIA in their NASCAR design efforts as well, is certainly hoping that Bazemore and Scelzi will be able to help dethrone John Force's decade-long preeminence on the fuel coupe throne.

Like the Avenger the funny car was based on, the two-door Neon being used in Pro Stock was no longer available off the showroom floor. Obviously, Detroit uses racing to drive customers toward their showrooms, so, not having products to accommodate those efforts is self-defeating. Dodge Marketing again wanted the Stratus R/T coupe instead, and DeKoninck and the crew (from Dodge and Applied Technologies in Toledo, Ohio) were turned loose on CATIA again.

This time, since the OE vehicle had been stylized in the program, it was a simple matter of taking the surface files in the system and beginning to modify them for the Pro Stock effort. The biggest difference was that the Stratus has more frontal area and is a bigger car than the Neon; it would need to be massaged to make sure it could equal the efforts of the previous car (one that had held the NHRA speed record for over a year).

To ensure they "colored inside the lines," Dodge Motorsports Engineering also began conferring on a regular basis with NHRA technical staff to make sure the finished car would be legal out of the box.

"They saw the 3D drawings (one of CATIAs functions), the redesigns, and the wind tunnel data," recalls DeKoninck. "They were very helpful. This Stratus will fit every template they currently use, and meets every dimension they require on the tech sheet."

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