The Multimatic MDP1 (also referred to as the Multimatic Ford Focus) is a first-generation

Daytona Prototype A Daytona Prototype was a type of sports prototype racing car developed specifically for the Grand-Am Road Racing, Grand American Road Racing Association's Rolex Sports Car Series as their top class of car, which replaced their main prototype rac ...

race car Race, RACE or The Race may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

, designed, developed and built by American manufacturer

Multimatic Multimatic Inc. is a privately held Canadian corporation that supplies components, systems and engineering services to the global automotive industry. Headquartered in Markham, Ontario, Multimatic has manufacturing divisions and engineering facili ...

, for the

Grand-Am Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. I ...

Rolex Sports Car Series The Rolex Sports Car Series was the premier series run by the Grand American Road Racing Association. It was a North American-based sports car series founded in 2000 under the name Grand American Road Racing Championship to replace the failed ...

, in 2003. It was powered by a Robert-Yates Racing Ford V8 engine. A total of four cars were built. The chassis would form the basis of the second-generation Daytona Prototype, Proto-Auto Lola B08/70.

Competition history

2003

The car made its debut in the hands of the factory team,

Multimatic Motorsports Multimatic Motorsports is the competition arm of Multimatic's Special Vehicle Operations division. Founded in 1992, the team has competed in numerous sports car racing series, including the Michelin Pilot Challenge, IMSA SportsCar Championship, a ...

, and achieved a class win at the

24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car racing, sports car Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Flo ...

albeit fourth overall. This would be the highest result for the car throughout its career. SpeedSource would campaign a car for the final four rounds of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

with a best finish of seventh overall at the VIR 400. Essex Racing, who also ordered a car, finished 29th overall at the final race of the season.

2004

At the opening race at Daytona, four chassis were entered with two each from SpeedSource and Essex Racing. All four cars would run into mechanical issues and eventually retired from the race. They would continue to run the car and found modest success. Essex Racing finished in the overall top ten a total of three times while SpeedSource had its highest finish of 11th at the first race at Homestead.

2005–2007

A factory run entry by

at the 2005 24 Hours of Daytona saw the #49 driven by

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

drivers

Kurt Busch Kurt Thomas Busch (born August 4, 1978) is an American auto racing driver. He is best known for competing in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2000–2022, last driving the No. 45 Toyota Camry TRD for 23XI Racing. Busch is the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series ch ...

, Matt Kenseth and

Greg Biffle Gregory Jack Biffle (born December 23, 1969), nicknamed "the Biff", is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver. After racing in the NASCAR Winter Heat Series in the mid-1990s, he was recommended to Jack Roush by former race ...

. The car would run into mechanical problems for a second year in a row at Daytona when Biffle stopped on track with less than an hour to go. Blackforest Motorsports also retired from the race due to damage from an accident. The car did not appear in any other races for

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

, with the chassis at a significant aero disadvantage especially when compared to the dominant Riley MKXI.

allowed Multimatic to make changes to make the chassis more competitive. Despite this, no team would run the MDP1 in

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

. In 2007, Multimatic would run the car in its final race at the Montreal 400k with drivers Scott Maxwell and Gunnar Jeanette. They would be classified 35th but, retired from the race. The reason for the entry was due to Grand-Am rules where Proto-Auto (association between Lola and Krohn Racing) bought the constructor's license from Multimatic. That partnership led to the Proto-Auto Lola B08/70.

References

{{Reflist Sports prototypes Cars introduced in 2003