Saturday Dodge/Save Mart 350 Notebook

SONOMA, Calif. -- NASCAR Winston Cup Bud Pole winner Boris Said is a busy man this weekend.

	Boris Said Credit: Autostock

In addition to his role as fill-in driver for the No. 01 U.S. Army Pontiac, Said is also driving in Saturday's Southwest Tour event and Sunday's Trans-Am feature.

So how does he prepare to drive three widely disparate machines?

"Each car is like a different girl, with a different personality," Said said. "You have to treat them a little different to get them to act nice to you. You know that getting into each car, you drive them completely different."

Said's crew celebrated winning the Bud Pole for Sunday's Dodge/SaveMart 350 by donning curly wigs, matching the driver's frizzy hairdo.

BAM gets help from AT&T

Associate sponsor AT&T stepped up to become the primary sponsor of the No. 49 1-800-CALLATT Dodge this weekend.

	Ken Schrader Credit: Autostock

"AT&T has been a strong sponsor of ours all season long," BAM co-owner Beth Ann Morgenthau said. "The addition of this race is exciting for all of us at BAM, and knowing they will be with us in the future is exciting, too."

Unfortunately, driver Ken Schrader got a busy signal during qualifying, having to take a provisional. He'll start 42nd on Sunday.

Junior is hard to impress

Not known for being fond of road courses, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was all smiles after practicing well and qualifying 11th for Sunday's race.

"Well, we ought to have been a little quicker, but I messed up," Earnhardt said about his No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet. "I'm real happy. Practice was great, we were able to run a decent lap in qualifying, but I could have been so much better. I just made a few mistakes."

Rapping for donors

Jeff Gordon's No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet will carry a special "Jes Us 4 Jackie" decal this weekend at Infineon Raceway to promote the Jes Us 4 Jackie program, a nationwide effort developed by superstar rapper Nelly and his sister, Jackie Donahue, to raise awareness about the need for marrow and blood stem cell donors.

Dodge/Save Mart 350  Lineup  1st Practice Speeds  2nd Practice Speeds  By the Numbers  Video Highlights

Donahue needs a marrow transplant and is searching for a donor. Through the Jes Us 4 Jackie campaign, Nelly and Jackie hope to increase the number of donors on the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. Jes Us 4 Jackie plans to sponsor donor drives on June 21 in New York, St. Louis and Los Angeles.

The campaign will focus on recruiting more African-American donors and donors of mixed heritage.

Banged up Busch

Proving that aerodynamics don't mean squat on a tight road course, Kurt Busch qualified fifth in the No. 97 Rubbermaid Ford, less than two hours after he roughed up the left side of the car in a practice crash.

The crew banged out the sheet metal, slapped pieces of tape on the bodywork to hold it together, and Busch then turned a lap of 92.879 mph.

"The guys did a superb job of getting that car put back together," Busch said. "It's tough that I took us out of contention for a pole. I just needed one more run with it, and we spent the time in the garage trying to fix the wreck instead of moving forward."

The car remained fast Saturday morning despite being as dimpled as a golf ball, as Busch was one of only four cars to average better than 92 mph during the first practice session of the day.

Mears get sloppy

Casey Mears, nephew of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears, is an accomplished road racer, but he seemed perplexed as to how to make a 3,400-pound Winston Cup car go fast at Infineon Raceway.

"Everything is totally different (from an open-wheeled car)," Mears said. "Stock cars don't respond as well. The forward bite is not the same. You have to slow yourself down a little.

"The first time I tested here, when I went into Turn 11, I smoked the tires because I misjudged how fast I was going. (A Winston Cup car) feels sloppy and (the chassis) rolls around a lot, so I didn't even know what to tell the crew to do. But it's absolutely fun. It's a blast throwing the car around."

Mears was 33rd in his No. 41 Target Dodge in Friday's qualifying, slowest of the four Ganassi Racing Dodges.

Craven finally gets some practice

After having a pair of engine failures that kept him from completing even one lap on Friday, Ricky Craven was able to get in 15 laps of practice Saturday morning.

Craven was 40th fastest in his No. 32 Tide Pontiac after using a provisional. His team spent nearly all of Friday's practice switching engines, only to have the back-up motor grenade before the car even took the green flag for Bud Pole Qualifying.

Revolting development

This week is the 157th anniversary of the Bear Flag Revolt, an armed uprising in Sonoma that resulted in a short-lived republic of California.

At dawn on the morning on June 14, 1846, a small band of Americans demanded the surrender of General Mariano Vallejo, commander of the northern garrison of the Mexican territory.

He was arrested and sent to Sutter's Fort, which within three years would play a major role in the California Gold Rush.

Having accomplished their mission without firing a shot, the Americans decided to raise a new flag over the Sonoma plaza.

William L. Todd, a nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the future President of the United States, drew a large five-pointed star and a grizzly bear on a piece of fabric, and attached a red strip of cloth to the bottom of his makeshift flag and wrote the words "California Republic" in the center.

Even though the bear looked more like a pig, the design stuck. Less than a month later, the "republic" was over, the Bear Flag replaced by the Stars and Stripes.

But the flag lives on, as a more artistic rendition was approved as the state's official flag.