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CART: Mercedes-Benz Engine Builders Seek Perfect Fit

20 July 1999

        MONTVALE, N.J. (July 20, 1999) -- In every aspect of racing, teams
and manufacturers look for the perfect fit -- a union of personalities and
technology that leads to victory. For Mercedes-Benz, anything less is
unacceptable.

        At the Ilmor Technology Center in Plymouth, Mich., engineers at the
race-engine design and manufacturing arm of Mercedes-Benz take the concept
of the perfect fit to new extremes. 

        Splitting hairs is no exaggeration, considering Ilmor uses machines
accurate to within tenths of a micron -- the width of a human hair is
approximately 70 microns.

        Responsible for the assembly and maintenance of the Mercedes-Benz
IC108E Phase III Champ Car engines for five CART FedEx Championship Series
teams, Ilmor manufactures 70 engine blocks at the beginning of each season,
performing 350 rebuilds throughout the year.

        While some of each engine's 4,000 parts are cleaned, inspected and
reused after each race, others are designed for a single event. In a search
for a competitive edge, parts are constantly studied, looking for ways to
improve tolerances and performance, while at the same time making them
smaller and lighter. 

                 "An ounce here or there might not sound like a lot, but
with thousands of parts, every ounce counts," said Paul Ray, vice president
of Ilmor Engineering. "And every piece has to fit together flawlessly and
be able to tolerate the extreme heat and violence of a race car engine.
Over the course of a 500-mile race, an engine will go through more than two
million revolutions, so a savings of one ounce per revolution multiplied by
two million is a real difference."

        To find the perfect fit, Ilmor inputs Computer Aided Design (CAD)
drawings directly into the Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines,
bringing concepts to life and creating identical, intricate parts of every
shape and size.

                     The CNC machines, provided by industry leader Haas
Automation Inc., also speed up the process of finishing parts and testing
new concepts. Before computer automation, it took nearly 18 hours to
manufacture a cylinder head for a race car. With the Haas machines, time is
cut to about three hours and identical parts can be produced 24 hours a
day.

        "Now, when our engineers come up with new ideas, we can produce
them immediately and give them a run," Ray said.

        "We want to locate our machines with technology partners to impress
clients in valuable markets," said Haas marketing editor Preston Gratiot of
the relationship with the Ilmor Technology Center. "Our association with
Mercedes involves us with a very valuable team."

        In addition to supplying engines to five teams with eight drivers
in CART, Mercedes-Benz defends its 1998 Formula One World Championship with
driver Mika Hakkinen and the West McLaren Mercedes team.

        Mercedes-Benz also competes in the highest levels of professional
golf and tennis -- sponsoring the PGA Tour's season-opening Mercedes
Championships in January, and the ATP Tour's Mercedes Super 9 series, nine
tournaments among the richest and most prestigious in the world.

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