Bill Elliott

By Jim Utter – jutter@charlotteobserver.com
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Ford Racing, along with Roush Yates Engines, has chosen three teams – those of Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler and Bill Elliott – to use the new FR9 engine again in Sunday’s Daytona 500.

“Based on completing the mileage on one of the engines, looking at wear condition on some of the others, and based on the performance of the engine during the qualifying races, we felt that providing additional FR9 engines will help give us additional boost for the 500,” said Dave Simon. He’s the Ford engineer who worked with Doug Yates on development.

Sunday’s race will be second straight restrictor-plate race for Kenseth and Sadler with the FR9. Both of their cars had the engines last fall in the race at Talladega, Ala