Ford Performance’s Tim Duerr Talks Pace Cars and Ford’s Partnership With NASCAR
By T. Walker
Tim Duerr, Motorsports Marketing Manager discusses working for Ford Performance, pace cars, and why specific Ford models are used in NASCAR.
Have you ever wondered how the pace car is chosen for a NASCAR race? Did it ever occur to you how manufacturers like Chevy, Ford, or Toyota choose certain models for their teams to compete in for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series? If you have never thought about it, don’t worry, I hadn’t either until a random opportunity presented itself and I met Tim Duerr, Motorsports Marketing Manager at Ford Performance Group.
I have been on the NASCAR circuit for many years, but as of late, headlines like declining attendance, drivers retiring, disgruntled fans, constant rule changes, sponsors leaving the sport, and who will drive the No. 88 have dominated the news. Point blank, I’ve been too engulfed with the NASCAR “Rumor Mill” to give a second thought about the cars the drivers are actually sitting behind the wheel of and driving on the track each Sunday. Luckily, all that changed as I talked to Tim Duerr about his career, NASCAR, the Ford Performance Team, and some fast muscle cars.
NASCAR’s partnership with Ford spans decades. Racing has evolved since Henry Ford took a bold chance and sat behind the wheel of his first race car to cement his name into history. Today, Ford Motor Company’s high-performance division, Ford Performance, is tasked with the engineering and development of new technologies to meet the needs of consumers globally on-road and on-track. Since Duerr went to work at Ford fresh out of university 40 years ago, he has played a significant role in helping Ford maintain their position in the marketplace as the number one bestselling brand.
I had an opportunity to speak with Duerr on the heels of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s win at Talladega and gained insight into Ford and NASCAR’s synergistic relationship. We discussed Duerr’s 40-year tenure at Ford and the reasoning behind certain decisions such as to why specific Ford models are used in NASCAR among other things.
[This interview was edited for clarity]
Q: I have a list of questions but first I wanted to ask you about being part of Ford for 39 years.
A: I’m thrilled to be a part of such a great organization. Actually, it will be 40 years on July 11th. It’s one of those things. When you’re hired right out of college, you don’t expect at that time to spend that much time with one company. But, six different locations, Marketing, Sales and Service with Ford-Lincoln, the old Lincoln-Mercury days, and then most recently, 12 years with Ford Performance, it’s just been spectacular. Probably would’ve retired early if I didn’t have such an exciting job with Ford Performance, but it’s been very, very exciting and rewarding.
Q: What was your journey to Ford? Did you always know you wanted to be a car guy?
A: I did. When I was very young, my dad was a big Ford customer and always bought new Fords and Lincolns so I had a passion for the brand. When I was a young child in grade school, my favorite car was a Thunderbird so I picked up the nickname as Thunderbird. I was destined, I believe, from even in my grade school days to work for the company that made the Thunderbird and made the great Ford and Lincoln products. So while at Valparaiso University in Upstate Indiana, I interviewed with Ford through the Business School, through the HR area at school, and they had a second interview in Dearborn prior to graduation. They hired me to start in St. Louis, Missouri on July 11th, 1977.
Q: You mentioned Sales and Marketing, tell me a little bit about how, like, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. being on the pole in Talladega in a Ford Fusion, how does that relate to sales with regular consumers. Does it boost the brand?
A: Yeah. NASCAR has such a large and very, very loyal fan base. We’re up to probably about 80 million people that really follow and pay attention to NASCAR, and when they see young Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in his Ford Fusion on the pole at a famous racetrack like Talladega, it gets a lot of exposure for Ford and the Ford Fusion and, you know, that it performed well, it was the fastest vehicle, that it’s a very dependable vehicle.
Q: I actually drove one to Talladega from Atlanta.
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A: Yeah. It’s a very high-quality vehicle, and it does a lot. It does a lot to polish the oval for Ford. It creates the awareness of the brand to the customers, and when people see things like that, their consideration for our brand gets stronger. And of course, Ricky gets out of his Ford Fusion and says, you know, “I had great power” and it just equates to people feeling more confident about us. And then you know what it does is, they become fans of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and all the Ford drivers. And when they see that they drive the vehicles on the track and off the track, it really improves their perception and consideration. It drives them to shop the brand.
When they go and drive our great vehicles, and get the pricing on our great vehicles via the lease or approach us, it equates to sales. We can actually track the sales with the customers, the NASCAR customers that we engage with at the track and it’s…we get some phenomenal numbers.
Q: How do you guys choose the pace cars? So, here at Talladega, it’s the GT car.
A: It’s the Shelby GT350 Mustang.
Q: How is that determined?
A: We have a group of people at Ford that determine what we want to showcase on the track to pace races and Ford is entitled to do that. And, you know obviously, it’s a race…It’s horsepower, it’s muscle cars out here in the sport, so we usually bring our hot rides. And what a better hot ride to bring to a race track than the Shelby GT350, 600+ horsepower…you know, just something that when it’s out there on the track, it really just shouts, you know, “Pony car, Mustang, hot ride…fast.” That’s what the fans come to see so we always bring our really cool, fast products to the track, and use them to pace our races. Then again, it just sends a message to the fans, the loyal fans of the sport, “That’s a cool car. We’re gonna go out and take a look and consider Ford.”
Q: Yes. I’ve been fortunate enough…in Daytona, I drove the Mustang around Daytona two months ago and the Ford Fusion around Talladega. I’m more of a Mustang girl, personally. I’ll date myself; I told it to the guys earlier. I use to actually own a 280z.
A: [Laughs] What a fun car! It was pretty cool back in the day.
Q: Yeah, I’m a muscle car kind of girl. But the Ford Fusion, it’s interesting because you don’t really equate it and driving it with NASCAR, so how do you guys relate it?
A: That’s a really good question because what we’ve always done in the past is, we try to showcase our number one selling car as the nameplate in the number one motorsports, being NASCAR. So, because Fusion is the number one selling volume car for Ford, that’s the car that we want to have mentioned and seen on TV during all these races. In the past, we had the Ford Taurus, we had the Ford Thunderbird, yeah, and of course, Mustang runs in the Xfinity Series, and the F150 in the Truck Series. But the decision was based purely on the fact that it’s our number one volume, name-plated Ford. That’s the nameplate that we want to have in NASCAR.
Q: Okay. Is that decision made by the Marketing guys?
A: It’s made by the Brand Team at Ford in conjunction with those of us at Ford Performance. So it’s a mutual decision, and it was made a while back when we were racing the Taurus. And then we kind of phased out the Taurus, brought back or brought the Fusion to market. This was back in 2006, 2007, and once the Fusion came on board, it’s remained our number one selling vehicle so that’s why we’re still racing Fusions today in NASCAR.
Q: What do you think Ford’s chances are of winning the championship this year?
A: I think it’s as good as it has ever been. We haven’t won a Monster Energy Cup Championship since 2004 with, ironically, Kurt Busch, who won the Daytona 500 this year. He ran for Roush Fenway back then, so we’re overdue. We’ve got a really good season going right now.
I don’t want to jinx us, but at the same time, with what I see with the addition of Stewart-Haas racing coming on board, giving us more bullets in the gun to hit the targets, I think it’s going to happen. And if things continue to progress like they’ve been so far, hopefully, knock on wood, this will be Ford’s year.
Q: I know you’ve talked about the Gen 6 cars, somewhat, helping Ford. Can you talk a little bit about that, like, when it was announced, how that really helped Ford?
A: Yeah. We’ve been working with NASCAR all along to give us more product identification, you know, equating the product on the track to the product that’s at the showrooms. Years past, it was really hard to recognize these cars as to what they were and NASCAR has worked so great with Ford to make…and the other manufacturers, Chevrolet, and Toyota to make our cars really representative of what’s on the track. Now you can’t go out and buy the Ford Fusion that Ricky was on the pole with, but there are markings on that car that really reflect that that’s on the showroom for today. And that’s what our fans wanted all along. That’s what we as manufacturers wanted all along.
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[A continued] NASCAR’s got some challenges with the fact that they wanted us to all be dead-on competitive from a balanced competition standpoint so you can’t have one faster than the other, or more aerodynamic than the other because there is that ability to be able to judge how the vehicle performs and make sure that there is a level playing field. So it’s a win-win really for everybody. NASCAR can still control that; make sure that no one gets an added advantage, but at the same time, the cars look very representative of what’s out in the showroom today and that’s what our fans and we really wanted in the long run.