How can you not pull for a guy like Boris Said?

Sights and sounds from Saturday at Daytona International Speedway:
It’s hard not to pull for a guy like Boris Said, who’s among the drivers who’ll be fighting for the final few available spots in the Daytona 500 field in today’s qualifying and Thursday’s 150-mile qualifying races.
Said was talking this week about how hard it is for him, as a part-time driver with a part-time team, to work his way into Nextel Cup races when 35 (or 36, with a former champion’s provisional) are guaranteed to full-time teams.
“I’ll go back to Indianapolis last year, which was probably the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever gone through,” Said said. “I was the bubble for a little while and it came down to the last guy, who had been faster than me in practice.”
Said said the mood in his trailer at that moment was like the movie “My Dog Skip,” which is sad enough to wring a tear from even the hardest of hearts. But the last car didn’t go faster than Said, meaning his car was in the Allstate 400.
“In 15 seconds it turned into ‘Brokeback Mountain’ with guys slapping each other on the butts and hugging and kissing each other and telling them we loved each other” Said said. “It was such an emotional swing that day.”

The more I think about it, the more the simplicity of what Dale Earnhardt Jr. is doing in his contract negotiations with Dale Earnhardt Inc. emerges in my mind.
I am sure Earnhardt Jr. has some problems with how DEI is being run as a racing company by his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt. I am sure he has concerns about the company’s future as a racing enterprise.
But I’m also convinced that this is as much about how Earnhardt Jr. believes he was treated when he was a boy, when he was shipped off to military school, as it is about anything else.
Basically, he feels like Teresa Earnhardt didn’t want him around. Now, he’s got a chance to let his stepmother see much that hurts.

You can’t make stuff like this up, I promise you. Tums is an associate sponsor on Reed Sorenson’s No. 41 Dodges this year, and it’s trying to be a little bit “different” in its marketing.
Next week, it plans to put out a list of favorite restaurants near tracks, presumably ones that might encourage people to use more of its product.
This weekend, Tums has released results of a Harris Interactive poll that asked male and female NASCAR fans which drivers “make their hearts burn and which ones give them indigestion.”
Not surprisingly, Dale Earnhardt Jr. topped the list of those that make fans’ “hearts burn.” He was picked by 48 percent of all fans and 55 percent of female fans. Jeff Gordon was second, Tony Stewart third and Kasey Kahne fourth.
Gordon, conversely, was first in the “indigestion” category, with Stewart second, followed by Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch and then Earnhardt Jr.

Sometimes, qualifying order is a big deal at a track. That’s usually true, for instance, if qualifying starts when the sun is out and goes into darkness. Later is usually better in that circumstance because the track cools off and, usually, gets faster.
Qualifying at Daytona takes FOR-EVER. Time trials begin at 2:10 p.m. Sunday and it might be 6:30 or so when it’s all over. That means it could cool off as the day goes along, but what seems to impact qualifying more here at Daytona is the wind – direction and velocity – so it’s hard to know whether earlier or later will be better Sunday.
For what it’s worth, Brian Vickers, Joe Nemechek, Kenny Wallace, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch are the first five scheduled to run Sunday afternoon. The final five scheduled are Kevin Lepage, Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann, Carl Edwards and Tony Raines.
Ricky Rudd, fastest in practice on Saturday, is slated to go out 49th. Teammate David Gilliland goes out 26th. Sterling Marlin, also fast in practice, is 15th in the qualifying order. Juan Pablo Montoya is 30th and Jeremy Mayfield is 42nd.

During Speed’s practice coverage Saturday, Darrell Waltrip was talking about what a great accomplishment it was for Toyota to have any of its brand-new cars in the top 10 in practice speeds in its first outing – Jeremy Mayfield’s No. 36 was fourth fastest. Whether you agree with that or not, the fact that he has appeared in about 40 commercials touting Toyota’s entry into the sport, that he has driven Toyotas in the Truck Series and that his brother, Michael, owns three Toyota Nextel Cup teams makes it hard to take anything DW says about Toyota anything other than an advertisement.
…Everybody’s talking about how many cars there are here this year, but while checking on something else I found out there were 58 entered in the Daytona 500 last year. That’s only three fewer that this year’s “glut.”