Good Fabrications does not operate a US office either but has still been successful in supplying its exhaust systems to one of the front-running NASCAR teams. Warren Briggs acknowledges that is not easy, even when you have a foothold. Initially, it was almost a case of turning up with “a bagful of bends.” The company now makes use of the services of North Carolina-based Mark Claussner, known in the USA as an ARCA driver and also a Richard Petty Driving Experience instructor. He straddles the Atlantic having also competed in the early ASCAR races at Rockingham here in the UK. Clausner maintains regular contact with the NASCAR world, continuously knocking on doors. “It's quite a social thing,” observes Briggs. “If we were phoning up from the UK, it would be a total waste of time.” 

He also points out that, if a US customer stays up reasonably late and puts through an order for tube or bends that is received early morning in Britain, Good Fabrications can have the product shipped out by that afternoon for next day delivery in the States.

Paul Webb, autosport product specialist for Deutsch is another to point out how attitudes within NASCAR have changed to the benefit of the would-be supplier. Deutsch is about to supply connectors for a new accident data logger for NASCAR. Webb remarks on how far this indicates the US series has come in the last five years. Then, he said, “We would have been viewed like witchcraft.” John Bailey agrees stating how different it was trying to sell to the NASCAR world even three years ago. Now the teams are prepared to add electronic solutions to their options.

Although NASCAR teams are unable to use conventional data logging during the actual races, it is permitted in testing. Pi Research, the company that started life on a Cambridge kitchen table is able to supply to a number of teams because of this. Other Pi manufactured equipment is found on all the cars in the Nextel Cup field while 100 per cent of the CART and IRL teams use its product. Originally an independent UK company, Pi Research became part of Ford and is now owned by an independent US operation. However, it has operated a North American base for about 10 years, even before its Ford days. The logic of having operations in both Charlotte and Indianapolis, to service the NASCAR/closed car and IRL/CART/open wheel fraternities respectively, is inescapable. “We are very much on the ground in the US,” says its customer services manager Martin Tolliday who has, himself, spent three years in North America.

Another point that Good Fabrications' Warren Briggs makes is that dealing with NASCAR is almost certainly different to selling to CART or IRL. However, it was noticeable at this year's Autosport International that most of the UK suppliers now achieving success wanted to talk about stock car racing. The willingness to look outside the Southern States is now apparent in the NASCAR paddock.

Jeff Andrews of the Hendrick team's engine division believes that his predecessor, the late Randy Dorton, “started taking notice of the things happening in F1 and brought some of that technology back to us, starting in the mid-1990s.” That interest has been to the benefit of the European suppliers. Although not representing a UK company, Wilfrid Eibach, boss of the eponymous spring supplier puts a humorous slant on how things have changed. His company's product is now mandatory on the rear of all NASCAR cars competing on the super speedways. This, he quips, surprises him, not because his is a German company, but because its US base is in California.

Ray Evernham, founder of Evernham Motorsports also reflected current NASCAR thinking about the wider world following a visit earlier this year to study Formula One technology in the UK. “When you look at series like F1,” he remarked, “everything is guided by technology.” NASCAR is certainly now looking in this direction of Europe and that is something the UK supplier base can surely use to its advantage.

UK based brake system manufacturers seem to have penetrated the NASCAR market arguably better than most. The very nature of oval racing is such that it is on the shorter courses that they have had the most success. NASCAR also makes a couple of forays onto road courses and at Watkins Glen last year AP Racing provided calipers for 24 of the 43 cars and discs for 22. Norman Barker, AP Racing's director of sales expects the number to rise to 30 for the road courses in 2005. The Busch series, NASCAR's “second division” is featuring two road races this year, the first of which was held in Mexico in early March. This brings fresh opportunity that AP Racing is already taking advantage of as a supplier to 10 of the cars. The company is also making progress in NASCAR with pedal boxes with 11 cars so equipped at Watkins Glen.

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