Ford Racing Mustang GT Wins At Daytona

With less than one day's experience behind the wheel of his new FordRacing Mustang GT race car, car owner and driver Tom Nastasi, withco-driver Ian James, claimed victory in the opening race of the 2005Grand-Am Cup season at Daytona International Speedway. The win marks thefirst race and first win for Ford Racing's Mustang GT race car built offthe new 2005 Mustang GT that is currently available in Ford dealerships.

"The car is awesome," said Tom Nastasi, owner of the #5 Ford RacingMustang GT run by Blackforest Motorsports. "It was delivered to me onWednesday, and the race was Friday. I was only able to put practice lapson the car, and didn't make any changes. It was that good rightout-of-the box."

Ford Racing's development team, a two-car effort run by MultimaticMotorsports, finished in 2nd and 9th place. Two other Ford RacingMustang GT race cars were campaigned, with 11th place captured by the #37 JBS Motorsports car with drivers Jim and Bret Seafuse, and 22nd placeby the #10 Champion Motorsports car with drivers Brad Lehmann and BJZacharias.

"When we started this program our goal was to build and sell identicalMustangs that people could win with and I think we proved that here atDaytona," said Dan Davis, director of Ford Racing Technology. "I'mthrilled that Blackforest Motorsports, one of our first customers, wonthe season-opening Grand-Am Cup race in one of these cars. It just goesto show that these new Mustangs are very competitive and they give theirowners a legitimate shot to win. It wasn't the fastest car on the track,but it won, and this is a great way to kick off Speedweeks for Ford inDaytona."

The race wasn't without excitement right down to the finish when the #5Blackforest Motorsports car was being chased down by the #55 Multimaticfactory team. Ian James drove the first stint in the #5 Ford RacingMustang and made the brilliant call to just take on gas, and no newtires, during their only pit stop and driver change in the race.

"The engine started to stumble coming down the final stretch, andactually ran out of gas just as we crossed the finish line," saidNastasi. "The team had to push the car into Victory Lane."

"It's a testament to how good this race car is and the development thatwent into it that we could run the whole race on one set of tires, andwin."

The Ford Racing Mustang GT was developed by Ford Racing PerformanceParts, in conjunction with Multimatic Motorsports, and will be sold as acomplete "ready-to-race" package for the Grand-Am Cup Series.

"We couldn't have asked for a better start for our Mustang competitionprogram," said Primo Goffi, Mustang program manager, Ford RacingPerformance Parts. "We're extremely happy with the results of theGrand-Am Cup 200 here at Daytona, especially for our customer teams."

For more information about the Ford Racing Mustang GT, or any of theFord Racing Performance Parts catalogs of hardware, visitwww.fordracingparts.com.