Carter Simo musical chairs ends with Said at The GlenThe weather, and the way NASCAR's rule book deals with it when it cancels a qualifying session, has put driver Boris Said and crew chief Frank Stoddard through the ringer the past few years. Said's own car has been a non-starter at the Glen the last two years, when qualifying was rained-out each time. The fact that two different team owners put him in their cars on Saturday to get a better race finish on Sunday was little consolation. Perhaps Said's biggest rain-induced disappointment came in July 2007 when he sat on the pole at Daytona with a handful of cars left to qualify, but when rain hit before the session ended Said missed that race. So for this weekend's Heluva Good! at The Glen, Said and Stoddard decided to do something about it, putting together a plan to ensure their No. 08 Carter Simo Racing Ford would be in the 43-car field for Sunday's race. They entered 1996 Cup Series champion Terry Labonte in the car that they each part own to take advantage of Labonte's champion's provisional if qualifying washed out. But there was a twist to circumventing the spirit of the rule. "If it was gonna rain on Friday, we were gonna let Terry run the race, we were gonna put him in that car," Said said. "We were gonna see on Sunday, if Terry maybe wasn't feeling well, if I could drive but our intentions were to run our car and if Terry had to run it, he'd run it." But Friday's forecast had no rain in it, so the team's plan was to leave Labonte at home and make a driver change, to Said, first thing Friday morning. Said was already entered this weekend to drive the No. 09 Ford in the Nationwide race on Saturday. "Knock on wood, it looks like we'll get through Friday [qualifying] for a change here," said Said, who has driven for the Wood Brothers and Petty Enterprises in the past two Cup races at The Glen. "As a driver, I'd hate missing this race, but now, as a half-team owner, our team's missed three races here after we've spent all the money in the world to get here, and we can't do that a fourth time." What's eased the burden on Stoddard and Said's No Fear Racing group and Carter Simo Racing partner John Carter is a connection Stoddard brought to the table. Older Northeast race fans would remember Dana Patten and his U.S. Chrome-sponsored Busch North cars. Company owner Bob Reath had a vacation home in Sunapee, N.H., and attended races at the Claremont Speedway short track, where Patten drove an unsponsored race car. (Continued) Reath watched some races, liked the way Patten competed and went down in the pits to meet him and another young man who worked days in an auto parts store owned by New England racing legend Stub Fadden and worked on race cars at night. Reath started out buying Patten some tires and ended up buying his whole racing operation. Working out of a two-stall garage, Patten and Stoddard, his crew chief and front-tire changer, ran five Cup Series races in 1988 in a No. 96 U.S. Chrome Buick. Their car's paint scheme this weekend is a throwback, a simple red-and-white look that's a tribute to what the little guys from New England did more than 20 years ago. "It's exciting to have Bob back in the sport after we started our first Cup race together over 21 years ago," Stoddard said. "I look forward to trying to contend for the win with the retro U.S. Chrome paint scheme that brings back a lot of great memories." "It's a beautiful-looking car, just awesome," Said said. "But to tell you the truth, I'd like driving that car if it was pink or if it was black -- it doesn't matter. It's just a bonus that it looks nice." Said said another bonus was meeting Reath, when U.S. Chrome backed their 2009 Daytona 500 qualifying attempt. Said went up to Connecticut, where he grew up, and toured the plant in Stratford. "He's more of a racing enthusiast than anyone I've ever seen," Said said. "The passion he has for motorsports is unbelievable -- from Indy to stock cars, everything. So part of the sponsorship deal is just his love of motorsports, and he kinda likes the idea that we're the Rocky Balboa underdog and he really like the fact that he's helping us out. "And two, the people that work at his company are all race fans that are diehard racers, so it's a pretty neat deal." Stoddard said Reath and several members of his family would be at Watkins Glen this weekend, including Reath's son, who runs the company's Wisconsin plant and got hooked on Sprint Cup racing when Stoddard invited him and his wife to the event at Sonoma earlier this season. And even though Said knows he's driving now, that doesn't eliminate the knife-edge fact that he's a go-or-go-home entry and he still has to beat at least three drivers in a crowd that includes road racers Ron Fellows, Max Papis, Andy Lally, Scott Speed, P.J. Jones, Brian Simo Tony Ave. "It's no different than [Sonoma]," Said said of the circuit's other road course, where he tiptoed around to qualify ninth. "If you had a provisional you'd go out there and run 10/10ths, or you could do like Scott Speed did, go off the road and it could bite you and you could go home. "At [Sonoma] we were lucky that we were fast enough in practice -- we were a top-three car -- that in qualifying you go out and run 80 percent and you qualify. We don't know yet, but if we're fast we'll be OK but if for some reason you're not, you've just got to run a fast lap and hope you stay on the road -- and that's nerve-wracking because it is really easy to make a mistake." |
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