Q: It looks like the Champ Car series got more bad news now that Michel Jourdain Jr. is leaving to join NASCAR’s Busch series. What’s the inside news on this move?
A: There’s nothing really “inside” here, Paul. Simply put, Michel Jourdain Jr., 28, through help from Ford Motorsports, decided to leave Champ Car (formerly CART) and sign on to run the entire Busch series in 2005.
Jourdain will drive a Ford Taurus for PPC Racing and will become the first Hispanic to compete for a full season in a top NASCAR division. Jourdain finished 12th in the points last year on the Champ Car circuit driving a Ford-powered car for RuSport Racing.
Ford’s race director, Dan Davis, receives much of the credit for putting this deal together. Jourdain will no doubt be a fan favorite when the Busch series races at the Mexico City road course in March. Jourdain’s career stats include 152 Champ Car/CART starts, two wins and 25 top-10s. His best championship point finish was third in 2003 when he raced for Bobby Rahal and David Letterman.
He will run a series of Busch “rookie” tests at Daytona prior to his trying to qualify for the season-opening event during Daytona’s Speedweeks in February. An Associated Press story indicated Jourdain may not receive a “go” at Daytona from NASCAR due to his lack of Superspeedway experience, but we feel he will get the go-ahead pending successful testing.
Jourdain joins new teammates John Andretti, who drives for PPC in the Nextel Cup series, Kenny Wallace in the Busch Series and Terry Cook in the Craftsman Truck division. We expect him to do well after a learning curve, and yes, his exodus from open-wheel racing can’t help the Champ Car series driver roster.
Q: I saw a show on the Speed channel about the 1970 Ford Talladega, and it said Ford didn’t really produce enough of them to be accepted by NASCAR as an official race car. I know it happened a long time ago, but that’s not right.
A: Well, in Ford’s defense, do you remember that mystery 427 Chevy engine that ran at Daytona in 1963? It could have won had it not been for head-gasket problems, and Chevy was supposed to make available at least 50 for NASCAR to accept it as an “official” production engine. Well, only 18 to 26 were ever accounted for. In 1969-70, the winged Plymouth Superbird and Dodge Daytona were other cars that just made production figures, and were probably the only real “showroom legal” cars on the track out of all those hybrid race cars in 1970.
The 1969-70 Ford Talladega was pretty much available only to the top race teams. If you ordered one at the Ford dealership, you were “shown” a similar model with a different engine, a 428, and not the 429 Boss and more successful 427 that powered this car to the overall championship in 1970 with David Pearson behind the wheel. We could write for hours on this subject, but don’t have the space!