Watkins Glen, N.Y. — On the final lap of Sunday’s Nextel Cup race, Boris Said, in the SoBe/No Fear Ford Fusion was in front of Carl Edwards as the lap began but Edwards emerged ahead of the effervescent Said at the finish.
“It looked like Boris was gonna out-brake Ryan [Newman] and Ryan went to cut in front of him and I think Boris was just going too fast,” Edwards said. “I think I went in between them. I don’t know exactly what happened, but that was wild. That was fun. This was one of those races I was really nervous about. I can’t believe we ended up top five here; that’s good.”
Said, who has formed his own team with friends Brian and Mark Simo and Frank Stoddard, who is his crew chief, to run a limited schedule, was originally credited with a sixth-place finish. However, NASCAR officials reviewed the race and Said was penalized 30 seconds for cutting across the inner loop on the track. That knocked him down to 31st on the day.
“The first half of the race was terrible,” Said said. “I just missed the handling a little bit and made a bunch of mistakes wheel-hopping, but we came back. I really wanted fifth and I was disappointed in Ryan Newman.”
Said felt Newman was running out of gas and made a couple of blocking moves and Said got into Newman. “I couldn’t help it,” he said. “I was already committed to that side, so I was disappointed in that.”
Said was unaware he had been penalized and thought he still had a top 10 when he left the track. They have run the four races they intended to this season and he’s gearing up to develop the Car of Tomorrow for next season.
Elliott Sadler, in what might have been his final drive in the Robert Yates Racing M&M’s Ford Fusion, moved up from eighth to seventh after the penalty was assessed against Said. He stormed back from an excursion into the gravel on lap five for the solid top 10 finish.
“The guys did a good job on strategy,” Sadler said. “It’s the same strategy we used at Sears Point [Infineon Raceway in California]; we came in and put four [tires] under caution and then came in and got gas only and that brought us out third. I just got a little too loose at the end, but it was a great job and a great run. It’s one of the best cars I’ve had on a road course and it was fun.”
Though finishing 21st and 20th, respectively, Matt Kenseth in the DeWalt Ford Fusion and Mark Martin in the AAA Ford Fusion did not lose any positions in the top 10. Kenseth is second behind Jimmie Johnson, who was 17th Sunday, and did drop a few points but is still only 124 out of first. Martin remained sixth in the standings heading into the final four races before The Chase in what he has hinted may be the last season in Cup for the 47-year-old. Both drive for Roush Racing.
Dale Jarrett in the Robert Yates Racing UPS Ford, who has already announced he’s leaving next year to drive a Toyota with Michael Waltrip Racing, was 26th Sunday. Ken Schrader in the Wood Brothers Sunbelt Snacks & Cereals Ford Fusion was 34th and Marc Goossens in a RYR prepared citifinancial Ford Fusion crashed and finished last in the 43-car field.
