Ford has officially unveiled the first of the 2010 Mustang race cars that will join the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The car was revealed at Roush Fenway Racing headquarters in Concord, N.C., which it was also announced that 2008 Truck Series Rookie of the Year Colin Braun would drive the No. 16 Con-way Freight Mustang.

The car will enter NASCAR for the first time in July 2010 at Daytona International Speedway.

Ovalo, Texas native Braun moves up to the Nationwide Series after running in the truck series, and his Con-way Freight sponsor comes with him. “I’m so happy that Con-way Freight decided to move up with me to the Nationwide Series for 2010,” Braun said. “They have been a great sponsor for the past two years in the truck series so it means a lot to me that they will continue to support me in the future. I’m also looking forward to driving a Mustang next year. I’ve always thought they are such incredible cars, but have never owned one. Maybe when I win my first race the guys at Ford will want to give me one of my own.”

“This truly marks the start of the next era of Mustang racing,” said Brian Wolfe, director of Ford North America Motorsports. “We fully expect this Mustang, with drivers like Colin behind the wheel, to start to enjoy the kind of success so many other Mustang racing programs have enjoyed throughout the last four decades. Mustang is a proud and historic brand for Ford. This is a car born to race, and NASCAR is the next logical step for its racing pedigree.”

Currently the Mustang competes in numerous other professional motorsports including the NHRA Funny Car and Pro Stock divisions, the Grand-Am KONI Challenge, SCCA World Challenge and the Mustang Challenge Series.

GALLERY: NASCAR Nationwide Series 2010 Mustang

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Saleen Performance Vehicles has released pictures of the 2010 S281 Mustang ahead of the car’s official unveiling at the SEMA show in Las Vegas.

The three  pictures, posted on Saleen’s Flickr and Facebook pages, provide a peek of the S281′s front and the rear, which a couple of Facebook commenters called an improvement on the 2010 Mustang’s original rear.

Full details will be released at the 2010 Saleen S281 Mustang’s unveiling Nov. 4 at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

We’ll be sure to bring you full details and photos from SEMA.

See AutoGuide’s live SEMA Coverage here!

Gallery: 2010 Saleen S281 Mustang

As promised, Ford Racing will bring the Mustang to NASCAR, starting next year in the Nationwide Series.

Looking rather un-Mustang-like, with the exception of a decal strip across the front that bears some resemblance to the narrow grille and headlight assembly on the 2010 Mustang, Ford says the cars will be part of a limited “muscle car” rollout – which will also include the Dodge Challenger.

“We’re excited about being able to race Mustang in front of our loyal NASCAR fan base and know it’s going to win races and championships just like it has in every other series it has competed,” said Brian Wolfe, director of Ford North America Motorsports. “The Mustang created the pony car movement when it debuted in 1964. Now, the NASCAR Mustang has the opportunity to create a whole new look to stock car racing at its highest levels.”

When the story was first reported that both Ford and Doge would bring their pony cars to NASCAR, it was expected that the vehicles would move into the top-level Sprint Cup series, helping boost interest after the series has posted a considerable decline in attendance and TV viewership in the past year. That no longer appears to be the case. Instead, the cars will debut in the Nationwide Series in an effort to help distinguish that series from Sprint Cup.

“We had been talking with NASCAR for some time about Mustang as part of its vision for a ‘muscle car’ rollout for the Nationwide Series. We both saw it as a way of differentiating the series from Sprint Cup,” said Wolfe. “We loved the idea, so we jumped on the chance to extend Mustang’s racing legacy to a new series reaching a huge and loyal audience. Mustang has dominated other forms of racing, including NHRA drag racing, Grand-Am Cup road racing, and Formula D drifting, and now it’s coming to NASCAR Nationwide.”

Surprisingly, while the Ford Mustang is touted as the “most successful single nameplate brand in professional racing history,” it has never competed in NASCAR.

“I think race fans – and Mustang loyalists – will be very pleased when we publicly roll out the first car later this fall,” said Wolfe.

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Ford has had it easy in the Pony car segment ever since 2002 when Chevrolet stopped selling the Camaro, but the iconic Chevy is back and making its presence felt. For the fist time since 1993 the Camaro out-sold the Mustang for a whole month.

The numbers weren’t even close as the new Camaro sold 9,320 units compared to the Mustang’s 7,362 units.

Chevy is actually having a tough time keeping up with demand for its new Pony Car and the Oshawa, Canada facility where the Camaro is built is running extra shifts and delaying workers’ holidays in order to keep up with demand.

The new Camaro is also one of the few silver linings to GM’s otherwise gray cloud as the automaker is currently in chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and has suffered drastic sales decreases over last year.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s VP of vehicle sales said that the Camaro was selling at double the expected volume and that the automaker currently only has a 6 day supply of vehicles, compared to an industry average of 67 days. Demand is so high that some customers are actually paying over the suggested retail price, something unheard of for a GM product.

While the Camaro is in the lead for the month off June, the Mustang is still ahead overall, but it could be a tight race come December. The last time the Camaro came out on top for a year was back in 1985.

[Source: Automotive News]