CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
9 March 2005
Implementation Investments
UGS Goes 2-0 to Start 2005 Racing Season; Software from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Leader Helps Andretti Green Racing Win Homestead-Miami Indy 300
UGS is on a roll - a very fast roll - with its racing sponsorships. The company's latest victory came when two of the four drivers for Andretti Green Racing, whose cars are developed with the help of UGS® technology, finished in the top three spots at Sunday's running of the Homestead-Miami Indy 300.
First place finisher Dan Wheldon drove the #26 Klein Tools/Jim Beam machine to a dominating victory at the 2005 season opening race, marking the fourth win of his Indy Racing League® (IRL) IndyCar® Series career and his first at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Wheldon's Andretti Green Racing teammate Tony Kanaan finished third.
"Our success is based on our ability to work together effectively as a team and UGS is an important member of our winning team," said Michael Andretti, CEO, Andretti Green Racing. "We rely on UGS software to help us fine tune our competitive edge through the design of critical components."
Andretti Green Racing uses UGS' NXT digital product development software for all of the design and development work the company performs on its fleet of eight race cars. Although IRL rules limit the modifications a team can make to the car body and engine, engineers still have quite a bit of leeway in other areas such as the suspension. Fine-tuning these areas often means designing and fabricating new parts in the brief interval between races.
"NX is powerful enough to handle our most complex and challenging designs and its ease-of-use allows us to get the job done fast," said Scott Graves, director of engineering at Andretti Green Racing. "There's no time to waste between races and with NX we can design, modify and manufacture a part overnight and have it on the car the next morning."
In addition to helping Andretti Green Racing take the checkered flag in the first race of the IRL IndyCar Series, UGS announced last month that its software was used in the development of the car that won the Daytona 500 - the first race of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series.
"UGS congratulates Andretti Green Racing and especially Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan on an excellent race to start the 2005 season," said Dave Shirk, executive vice president of Global Marketing for UGS. "We are proud of our racing heritage and pleased that our technology is helping so many racing teams reach victory lane."
"Obviously UGS is an integral partner to the Andretti Green Racing team," said Dan Wheldon. "When we can put together results like we had in Homestead, it makes us all very, very proud. We want to continue to develop our relationship with UGS and hope it gets us into victory lane even more often than it did last year."
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