FORD has shed light on the transition its Supercars engine program is about to undergo.
While Rob Herrod was initially keen to downplay the level of change occurring, Ford has now confirmed that Dick Johnson Racing has bought out Herrod Performance Engines and that a new name is being decided on.
“The engine shop will transition from Herrod ownership to DJR ownership,” Ford Australia product communications and motorsport manager Ben Nightingale told V8 Sleuth.
“It’s in transition now. That will be finished by the end of the week, December 1.
“Basically, we have had a holistic look at our Supercars program and recognised where we needed to add more resource and more time, more people, more money and really focus on how we go faster in 2024.
“Rob’s undeniably a member of the Ford Performance family with his road car business and he does a great job in that space, so he is focusing on that, and DJR will work on creating a separate entity that will manage our engines ongoing.”
The DJR-owned entity, which will service the engine needs of all Ford Supercars teams, has committed to hiring additional staff.
“Bobby Ervin and Kaz Penwarden are absolutely still involved, they are key members of the team,” said Nightingale.
“Then DJR will bring in engineering and administrative resource to run the business and also work through all of the engineering side, liaise with the teams, liaise with our Ford Performance powertrains team in the US, liaise with Brendan McGinniskin and make sure we’re all aligned and heading in the right direction and developing as we need to.”
The program will continue to be based out of the old Stone Brothers Racing engine shop in Yatala.
