Ford’s array of factory-backed experiences for owners expands with the approaching Mustang Experience Center. Opening later this yr adjoining to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Ford previews it as “the destination for all things Mustang.” A museum-style Heritage Gallery will take visitors on a tour of 60 years of Mustang, the obligatory retail shop filled with merchandise mementos to take the memories home. The Ford Performance Racing School will host its Mustang Unleashed track day courses on the speedway complex, these geared toward the EcoBoost and GT Trims that finally get their very own modules after the Dark Horse Track Attack. Students who wish to upgrade their personal rides to match their recent skills will be capable of buy aftermarket parts on the Mustang Experience parts shop. For the truly horse crazy, the power is able to host corporate events and weddings, too.
One yr ago, there have been rumors of a brand new road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway that ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Wurz was helping to design. Nothing official’s been heard concerning the addition since, but Ford’s release mentions a brand new 1.7-mile road course that is going to open this quarter. If so, it will give the Ford Performance school and other track visitors a kinder track day experience than the infamous Charlotte Roval that, akin to Rolex 24 at Daytona, combines an infield infield road course with the standard NASCAR banked oval.
On the opposite side of the tracks, Ford has showed its initial livery for the brand new factory-backed Mustang GT3 IMSA racers that will campaign within the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Called the Champion Spirit Livery, it honors eight Mustang competition cars that saw motion from the years 1964 to 1997. The chosen honorees:
- The Alan Mann Racing-prepped Mustangs that took first and second within the 1964 Tour de France, only five months after the Mustang’s debut;
- The Shelby GT350 that won the 1965 SCCA B-Production Championship;
- The 1966 Shelby American Mustang that won the inaugural SCCA Trans-Am Series season;
- The 1970 Mustang Boss 302 that Parnelli Jones and George Follmer used to win that yr’s SCCA Trans-Am Series;
- The turbocharged 1981 Zakspeed Mustang that represented Ford’s return to sports automobile racing;
- The 1985 Roush IMSA Mustang GTO that won nine IMSA races on the approach to the driving force’s and manufacturer’s championships;
- The 1987 Roush IMSA Mustang GTO that won the Daytona 24-hour race;
- And the 1997 Mustang Cobra Trans-Am that claimed the SCCA Trans-Am season with 11 consecutive victories.
The Ford Multimatic Motorsports team will enter the Mustang GT3 IMSA in its first race next month, the Motul Course de Monterey Powered by Hyundai N at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca. The Champion Spirit Livery will then fly to Detroit for the Detroit Grand Prix. After that, the team will convert to its standard livery from Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen in June until the tip of the season.
Credit : www.autoblog.com
