Fuller using experience to help Furniture Row team

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- NASCAR runs in circles -- and not just the laps that 30 teams have been turning for the last two days during the second session of Sprint Cup Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway.

You never can tell when a deal made now may pay off years down the road, and such is the payoff this week for nearly 50 Busch Series races that Massachusetts native Jeff Fuller drove for Joe Nemechek's NEMCO Motorsports team between 2001 and 2005.

The Furniture Row Racing team for which Nemechek drives contacted Fuller after it tested Nemechek's primary COTs last week in the opening session of Preseason Thunder. The team decided to bring a second car, a No. 87 Chevrolet -- which ironically has a history as a NEMCO number in what's now the Nationwide Series -- and it came to Daytona in a "NEMCO R&D team" transporter.

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And Fuller, a solid pro, responded by turning the ninth- and 12th-best laps in Monday's single-car sessions, and followed up with the ninth-best lap Tuesday morning.

"It got going real good," Fuller said at day's end. "We never got out in drafting runs, but single-car it was running really good and that's what they wanted to concentrate on for this entire test.

"They just asked me if I could come down and give them a hand testing it, so I don't know where it's going to go from here -- but the car definitely drives pretty good."

Fuller's been in this position before. An old Modified racing buddy Mike McLaughlin, who like Fuller is a former national Modified champion and was working as Joe Gibbs Racing's driver development coach, was testing Tony Stewart's car in 2006. The team asked Fuller to test a second car and the men put both of them in the top 10 on the speed chart.

Fuller, 50, put the COT's performance on a par with the standard Cup car he'd last tested here, and he said -- as many drivers at both COT sessions have -- that the racetrack was as rough as he remembered it to be.

"The car feels the same to me," Fuller said, "and the track's still bumpy, but they still drive the same. I haven't been in the draft, like I say, but for the drivability, I can't tell much of a difference."

When teams return for Speedweeks 2008 next month, both Furniture Row cars, if the team decides to enter Fuller to attempt to qualify for the 50th Daytona 500, will need to qualify on speed or race into the main event through their Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races.

So for Fuller, who qualified for all 30 Busch races he attempted in 2004 -- though many of the races themselves in his last real busy season were "start and park" efforts -- speed is once again of the essence. (Continued)