Smith keeps longest active finishing streak rolling on

The cool thing about watching racing, and watching young Regan Smith, is that while you're sitting there, you can come up with all kinds of scenarios he -- or any other driver, for that matter -- might be considering.

When it came to watching Smith's No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet on Saturday night, as the end of the Coke Zero 400 wound down, you sat there wondering if Smith's career finishing streak would continue, and even more, if he'd get his first career top-10 finish.

Regan Smith

2009 Results

Race	Start	Finish
Daytona	42	21
Las Vegas	18	19
Texas	33	31
Phoenix	9	28
Talladega	6	15
Darlington	29	21
Dover	33	22
Pocono	42	33
Loudon	43	27
Daytona	43	12
Averages	29.8	22.9

As typically wild as Daytona on a hot, slick summer night had been, neither was anything close to a guarantee.

For Smith it was a lot simpler. All he was thinking as he was digging toward Daytona's finish line was scrambling for a couple more spots.

But now it's a fact. Smith's latest effort did extend his running at the finish streak to 51 races, the Cup Series' longest active string, which extends over Smith's entire three-year career since he's never run a full schedule. And even better, despite the disappointment of a top-10 vaporizing, Smith's 12th-place was his career-best.

And best of all, it's made people notice -- people who are in position to really appreciate what he's accomplished in only 10 of 18 races the series has done this season. Most important, the team based in Denver, Colo., has made every race it's attempted.

"He does a good job at looking ahead and paying attention -- he really does," Furniture Row team manager Joe Garone said after the race. "There is a luck factor involved, to be sure, but I don't want to take away from what we see. He is good at looking ahead and making the right decisions. It's incredible, actually.

"He identifies what's going on up in front of him and in most cases it seems like he's able to decide what kind of action's going on. He's always asking on the radio how dicey they're getting up front and if they're getting crazy, and I think that helps him to be prepared and to avoid accidents when they come up, but it is uncanny."

At Daytona, Smith said on the last restart he got separated from Kurt Busch, whom he had worked well with all night, and who finished fifth. The line Smith was stuck in didn't take off well on the final restart, and never really got going. It was game over -- but only for one night.

"He was absolutely moving up and looking at a top-10, but like I said, it takes all those things lining up," Garone said. "You've got to have a little bit of luck [but] he pays great attention to what's going on with the field, he looks ahead and has just tremendous reaction times."

For Smith, who knew he had only a 12-race schedule when he signed to race for Barney Visser's team this season, Garone gave the ultimate payoff on Saturday.

"We're looking at adding some more races as we move forward," Garone said. "We'll announce them later, and we're working hard to get sponsors to run a full season next year. Regan's finishes absolutely led to us thinking about adding races. Man, when you're not tearing stuff up, you're just able to better prepare and better plan and do the things you need to do, so it all helps." (Continued)