NATCC ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH NEW FAN BASE.

Byline: Mike Harris Associated Press 

Few people outside the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia had even heard of a stock car when NASCAR was born in 1949. Now, the Winston Cup series is a national phenomenon.

Tim Culbertson and many others involved in the fledgling North American Touring Car Series can only hope that the same lightning strikes for them.

The NATCC, which has been in existence for two racing weekends so far, features midsize, four-door production sedans.

At Detroit last weekend, that included cars from Chrysler, BMW, Toyota, Mercedes, Honda and Ford.

``The idea of this series is to bring some very competitive racing to road racing,'' said Tim Culbertson, program manager for the Dodge Stratus Super Touring Car. ``The rules are written for very close racing.

``This is a world formula, you might say. There are series like this, maybe 15 to 20 of them, all over the world, and many of them are very, very popular.

``In every one, there is a very strong manufacturer presence,'' Culbertson added. ``This is a chance for the manufacturers to do battle. Unlike a series like IndyCar, where everything is built to race, we are racing what we build.''

The outsides of the cars are virtually stock, with only slight modifications to the front and the addition of rear wings making them appear different than the cars being sold to the general public.

But the internal parts of the vehicles are pure race car, starting with the roll cage and cockpit area.

Manufacturers are allowed to use engines from any model in their car line as long as at least 2,500 have been built. Engine size is limited to 2 liters and may not have more than six cylinders, and no turbochargers or superchargers are allowed.

``For Chrysler, the key is that we have a company policy that we race what we build, and this series fits that to a tee,'' Culbertson said. ``Other than slight fender modifications, the sheet metal in our Stratus is stock.

``It's a series that is very attractive to a lot of people. All North American manufacturers are talking about this. I think they'll all be in it before long because it just makes sense.

``We have built this car entirely in-house,'' he added. ``We started June 1, 1995 and the car's first race was May 24, 1996. From concept to winning race car in less than a year.

``We've used the same engineers, designers, technicians and mechanics who work on our other lines of cars. It's also allowing some young engineers to get their hands on the entire car, instead of working their way through one part of the car at a time, which is the usual procedure. The learning experience we're getting from that is outstanding. It allows them to be better engineers,'' Culbertson said.