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.

Fuller's NEMCO contacts also paid off last weekend during Craftsman Truck Series Preseason Thunder when he worked for three days spotting for old buddy Eric Phillips, the crew chief for Morgan Dollar Motorsports, which ran its first test with new driver Erin Crocker.

Road to Daytona

If it can get an engine program in place for a second car during Speedweeks 2008, Furniture Row Racing hopes to enter a second car for the Daytona 500 and give road racing veteran Max Papis a chance at his first Sprint Cup start.

"We're trying to get a second car [87] into the race with Max Papis, which would be sponsored by Denver Mattress," Doug Holbrook said.

"Right now we're kind of in limbo because the other day we found out we might not be able to get a motor for this deal, but we'll go from there and that's about all I can say."

Dave Rodman

"It worked into my schedule, because I was down here spotting for the Morgan Dollar truck," Fuller said after taking a break to sign a few autographs for fans Tuesday evening. "I've spotted just a little bit, like for Stanton Barrett. But I'd much rather be driving than spotting -- especially at a track like here or Bristol.

"Them spotters deserve every dime they get, because it's a little bit more intense than the average person thinks."

In no other sport can the participants go around and come around like they do in NASCAR. As long as you don't knock a hole in the wall -- or blow up a bridge -- the circle can continue.

Fuller's experience over the last five days is proof -- and he almost did the former in June of 2006, when he raced through Turns 1 and 2 at Kentucky Speedway in the Busch Series race on the fast, 1.5-mile oval and Jason Leffler spun in front of a pack of cars, including Fuller's No. 34 Chevrolet.

Fuller jerked the wheel hard to the left to miss Leffler's spinning car and was propelled at almost full speed into the track's inside wall, which at the time wasn't protected by a SAFER barrier. Although the crash looked like a clip from the imaginary "they didn't survive" series, Fuller only suffered a broken wrist and finger and was briefly hospitalized due to smoke inhalation.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine -- I'm as normal as I ever was," Fuller said with a laugh. "I don't know if that's saying much."

But Fuller's had a solid career, if you look at his log of short-track wins: his 1992 national Modified championship; the 1995 Busch Series rookie of the year title while racing ST Motorsports' No. 47 Chevrolet to 10th in the Busch driver standings; and his win from the pole a year later in Bristol's August Busch race.

He's also had a limited Cup career, with 13 starts to his credit, in addition to 184 career starts in what this season becomes the Nationwide Series.

"This season, just doing a little bit of testing here and there is all I've got going on," Fuller said. "But other than that I have no [driving] commitments."

But Fuller drew on his long history in the sport, from New England's short tracks to Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series venues coast-to-coast, when he said: "You know how this sport is -- anything can change, and in a hurry."