BY TEAM FORD RACING CORRESPONDENT

Talladega, Ala. — Oct. 1, was an important day in the stock car world. The date was big because it was the final day for 2003 hardware submissions from the manufacturers to NASCAR.

All three companies did submit “hard parts” to NASCAR for its consideration. The length of time between submittal and approval, or rejection, can run the gamut from mere moments for the far-fetched requests to several weeks for a part that catches NASCAR’s attention.

Ford, in their submittal, offered NASCAR a new nose, tail and manifold. The nose is rumored to be part of the “common” template NASCAR is eyeing for 2003.

The tail or rear bumper cap, which covers the fuel cell area, on the current fleet of Taurus cars was not symmetrical when it was submitted several years ago and has been the topic of discussion at about every superspeedway event since. The new piece addresses these concerns. The final Ford piece submitted was an intake manifold.

Dodge’s wish list was rather short and limited to a new nose. Again, this nosepiece was submitted to comply with the 2003 common template design. The Dodge nose has a small detail ridge on the front bumper cap, allowing the Dodge teams an additional half-inch of kickout. That half-inch ridge reportedly was removed from the newly submitted piece.

GM went for the full Monte, as it were, with their block, head and manifold submission. The GM men didn’t say what issues the new block addressed, but teamfordracing.com knows they’d love to get the fuel pump swung around from the right to the left side, which would help with vulnerability issues during a crash. This certainly doesn’t address the heads and manifold, but the reason for those requests will likely become clearer during the Talladega, Ala. weekend.

Keep in mind that the GM factory effort will bring common template cars to the track for 2003 with both the Monte and Grand Prix getting sheetmetal worked over during the spring and summer of this year.

All the teams, regardless of make, will be busy during this year’s off-season bringing the cars into compliance for the 2003 common template. That’s right, even though the Ford and Dodge cars will go principally unchanged both marks will need total re-skinning to address rear window and cowl concerns of NASCAR.

Ford also submitted a new nose for the F-150 in the Craftsman Truck Series. It is not known what the other brands offered to NASCAR for that series.

SEVERAL DRIVERS SIDELINED THIS YEAR
With Sterling Marlin’s addition to this year’s list of sidelined drivers, the list of injured drivers is getting rather lengthily.

The first driver to step out of his ride was Rick Mast, who suffers from an unspecified aliment, apparently tied to carbon monoxide poisoning. Mast has not been in a car for most of the year. Johnny Benson broke ribs twice this year and missed a generous handful of events. Bobby Hamilton is still riding the bench after a wreck in a Craftsman truck at Richmond, Va. in September.

Jeff Purvis, who was injured in a vicious crash at Nazareth, Pa. earlier this year, is still in the rehabilitation stages of his recovery. Purvis, who is lucky to be alive after his wreck with Greg Biffle, may never drive again professionally.

And just two weeks ago Christian Elder decided to call it quits on NASCAR after his vicious fiery wreck at the Chicagoland Speedway in July. Elder will head to sports car racing in 2003.

The drivers have consistently been saying this year that the hits are getting harder every week.

There have also been a couple of close calls, including Tony Stewart’s Darlington, S.C., wreck in May and Dale Earnhardt Jr’s wreck at Fontana, Calif.

Thankfully the occupant restraint efforts employed by the teams and NASCAR during the past several years have helped prevent life threatening and fatal injuries. But these cars continue their hits of 50 - 60 g (the acceleration of a body in free fall under the influence of earth's gravity expressed as the rate of increase of velocity per unit of time and assigned the standard value of 980.665 centimeters per second per second); and drivers are still injured to the point where they must sit out while those injuries heal.