Garry Rogers' Valvoline Cummins Race Team is the latest in a series of Holden teams to forge a technical partnership with Walkinshaw Performance in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series.
Despite running an in-house engine building program for many of the past few championships, Rogers' Holden V8 Supercar operation will use Walkinshaw power for the 2008 championship and beyond.
Results have been impressive for the small Dandenong South operation in 2007, with Lee Holdsworth claiming a round win at Oran Park.
However with a distinct lack of horsepower in comparison to the Toll HSV Dealer Team and Holden Racing Team, Garry Rogers has decided the team's best option is to use the same engines as these two front running teams.
We have been getting closer to the front over the last two years and during that time we have continued with our own engine development program, said Rogers.
With the recent sale of my Nissan business and the relocation and building of new premises for our race team at Dandenong South we do not have the time to persevere with an inhouse program.
I have no doubt that given sufficient time and funding we have the right people in place and could complete this program, but we need to improve our results now and there is no doubt that the best of the Holden-engined cars are the ones that come out of the Walkinshaw Group.
In some ways it is disappointing as in the past we have been able to produce some
very strong engines, but the level of competition today is fierce and even the most
miniscule gain can mean the difference between a win and 20th place.
By purchasing customer technology from Walkinshaw Performance, Rogers can use monies saved to invest in programs elsewhere at the team.
The technology and equipment required today to be able to find the maximum horsepower and performance from these five litre V8 push rod engines is extremely expensive and difficult to come by.
