Dearborn, Mich. — Ford Motor Company has a long and winning history in NASCAR’s upper echelon racing series, including the Nextel Cup, formerly Winston Cup.

Year	Championship Driver	Car Owner	Wins	Poles
1965	Ned Jarrett	Bondy Long	13	9
1968	David Pearson	Holman-Moody	16	12
1969	David Pearson	Holman-Moody	11	14
1988	Bill Elliott	Harry Melling	6	6
1992	Alan Kulwicki	Alan Kulwicki	2	6
1999	Dale Jarrett	Robert Yates	4	0
2003	Matt Kenseth	Roush Racing	1	0
2004	Kurt Busch	Roush Racing	3	1

PAST FORD CHAMPIONS
• Ned Jarrett, who is Ford’s all-time race winner with 43, won his second series championship in 1965 and the first driver’s title for Ford.
• David Pearson is the manufacturer’s only multiple champion as he won 27 races and captured 26 poles en route to back-to-back titles in 1968 and '69.
• Bill Elliott registered the first driver’s championship for Ford in the modern era, which started in 1972, by 24 points over Rusty Wallace in 1988.
• The late Alan Kulwicki edged Elliott by what was at the time the narrowest margin in NASCAR Winston Cup history when he led one more lap than Elliott and clinched the five-point bonus to win the title by 10 points in 1992.
• Dale Jarrett clinched his championship one race before the season-ending event in 1999 and eventually won by 201 points. As a result, the Jarretts joined the Pettys as the only father-son duo to win the NASCAR Winston Cup championship.
• Like Jarrett, Kenseth claimed the final NASCAR Winston Cup championship early after a fourth-place finish at Rockingham sealed the deal. Kenseth gave car owner Jack Roush his first series title by posting one win, 11 top-five and a series-best 25 top-10 finishes. He took the points lead after a fourth-place finish at Atlanta in March and held that advantage for the final 33 weeks.
• Busch became the inaugural Nextel Cup champion in 2004 by edging Jimmie Johnson in the newly-designed 10-race ‘Chase for the Nextel Cup’. Busch began the chase in seventh-place, but set the tone by winning the first event at New Hampshire in September. He took the lead after finishing fifth at Talladega and eventually posted six top-5 finishes and nine top-10 efforts in the final 10 events. It looked as if his title hopes were dashed when a wheel came off early in the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but he recovered and finished fifth to beat Johnson by eight points, the closest point finish in NASCAR Nextel Cup Series history.

FORD’S MANUFACTURER CHAMPIONSHIPS (MODERN ERA)
1992—Clinched at North Wilkesboro by Geoffrey Bodine (Won Holly Farms 400)
1994—Clinched at Martinsville by Rusty Wallace (Won Goody's 500)
1997—Clinched at Martinsville by Jeff Burton (Won Hanes 500)
1999—Clinched at Phoenix by Mark Martin (Finished 2nd in Checker Auto Parts/DuraLube 500K)
2000—Clinched at Rockingham by Dale Jarrett (Won Pop Secret 400)
2002—Clinched at Atlanta by Kurt Busch (Won NAPA 500)

FORD’S MANUFACTURER CHAMPIONSHIP SEASONS (15): 1956, 1957, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2002.