WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Before road-course ace Ron Fellows made his first NASCAR start at Watkins Glen International 12 years ago, he counted maybe six regular drivers he considered legitimate contenders. Two years later, Boris Said qualified second the first time he ever sat in a Cup car, and even after falling to the rear of the field didn't have much trouble working his way back to the front.

"It seemed easy to pass these guys," Said said.

“

Once you show them how to do it, they take to it, they work at it. There are 15, 20 guys that could win the race here easy.

”

-- BORIS SAID

It was the beginning of a prosperous era for the men who would become known as road-course ringers, those unfamiliar drivers who would show up at Sonoma or Watkins Glen and fill in for regulars who were about as comfortable on road courses as they would be on the face of the moon. At their height, it wouldn't be uncommon to see half a dozen ringers in the field, all of them in fully sponsored cars.

Just look at the results for the 2003 Cup event at Watkins Glen, where Scott Pruett teamed with Chip Ganassi, P.J. Jones with Larry McClure, John Andretti with Gene Haas, Said with MB2 Motorsports and Fellows with Dale Earnhardt Inc. Wood Brothers, Petty Enterprises, Michael Waltrip Racing and Hall of Fame Racing have also used road specialists in recent years, to enhance their chances or replace oval-trained regular drivers not as comfortable making left and right turns.

Although no road-course specialist has won a race on NASCAR's premier since Mark Donohue won at Riverside International Raceway in 1973, the practice has become as common as the sight of "Said head" wigs in the grandstand at the Glen. And yet this weekend offers evidence that it is coming to an end.

Fellows, the Canadian road-racing ace who's won three Nationwide events and twice finished second in Cup races at Watkins Glen, is driving the No. 09 of Phoenix Racing, which isn't a full-time entry. Said, who finished third here in 2005, is driving for the team he co-owns. Other specialists in the field -- like Max Papis, Andy Lally, and Jones -- are running for lower-rung operations. Not too long ago, there would have been a handful of ringers racing in fully-sponsored regular rides. This week, there's one: Patrick Carpentier, filling in for Michael Waltrip in the No. 55 Toyota. And that almost certainly won't be the case again next season, when Martin Truex Jr. slides into that seat.

So Donohue's mark will almost certainly survive this weekend, and likely last well into the future. The time when a road-course ringer could jump into a regular car and be a serious threat to win a Cup race is virtually over, made extinct by full-time NASCAR drivers who are infinitely better at road racing than they used to be. A decade ago, many drivers would grumble when it was time to race at a road course. Now they take it seriously, and it shows. The difference? "Night and day," according to Said.

“

Everybody is getting paid a lot of money, sponsors expect them to be in the car every week and if you can't perform on the road courses, then you might be out of a job. I think it forces them to step it up.

”

-- JEFF GORDON

"To get in the Chase, they can't afford to give up those points," he added, "so they've all worked at it. I've always said these guys are the best in the business in racing, but road racing is really just a different discipline. A lot of these guys, like Kevin Harvick and Kasey Kahne, guys I've worked with, they were terrible when they started, and then after the test, they're faster than I am. It's like showing a duck water. Once you show them how to do it, they take to it, they work at it. I think the field in the old days, you could say, all right, it's going to be Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, and Ricky Rudd. You could count on that. But now there are 15, 20 guys that could win the race here easy."

It's helped that former road-course drivers like Marcos Ambrose, Robby Gordon, and Juan Montoya have become full-time NASCAR drivers, deepening the pool of regulars who are seen as genuine road-course threats. But today on the Cup tour, the rank-and-file competitors are good enough on road courses that their teams no longer need to seek outside help. They've almost been forced to get better at it, given how the Chase format has put a premium on gaining points.

"I think the younger guys know that you can't take any weekends off, and I think the points situation 10 years ago wasn't nearly as competitive as it is now. That's probably the biggest difference. You'd show up with a short track car at Watkins Glen, maybe finish in the top 20, top 25, and move on. But not anymore," said Fellows, who races Corvettes in long-distance events when he's not moonlighting in NASCAR.

"Certainly, Jimmie Johnson is probably the best example of a guy who just does not take a weekend off whether the road turns right or left. He's an outstanding talent, and that's the trend. These guys, if they feel like they struggle in one area, they go out and work on it, because they want to be dominant, because that's what it takes. That certainly makes it more difficult for part-time guys."

Under the old points format, road-course races were almost seen as expendable. Teams could sacrifice driver points by putting a specialist in the car, and hope to make up the difference somewhere else. That kind of thinking has gone the way of bias-ply tires and the hemi engine.

"I think there was a period of time where you could give up races for the championship and it would be OK. You excelled enough at the rest of the tracks that if you went to the two road courses a year and finished 15th, that you were OK with that. Then I think as the competition increased, you started seeing teams getting better and better at every track we went to," said Jeff Gordon, whose nine road-course victories are the most by any NASCAR driver.

"Now the cars better, and so I have to be better. They don't just go into it saying that they are going to step out for that race and let somebody else drive the car. It's really not acceptable anymore to do that. Everybody is getting paid a lot of money, sponsors expect them to be in the car every week and if you can't perform on the road courses, then you might be out of a job. I think it forces them to step it up."

That leaves the road-course experts, many of them very popular with fans, looking for second-tier rides. Given how entrenched the Chase has become, and how drivers continue to get improve on road courses -- Johnson places a road-course victory high on his to-do list every season, and a number of NASCAR regulars participate in occasional sports-car events -- the trend away from ringers shows no signs of reversing itself anytime soon. They'll still show up, of course, but more and more they're becoming limited to Nationwide cars or second-tier Cup entries. All those bushy "Said head" wigs in the grandstand have become a charming reminder of an era that has passed.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.