DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Boris Said's dream of being a guaranteed starter in the Daytona 500 comes true in 2010, but the popular California veteran hopes the dream doesn't turn into a pumpkin before the Cup season finale nine months later and four hours south in Homestead.

“

I feel like I've hit the lottery, to be able to come down here and relax all week and know that I'll be in the greatest race in the world.

”

-- BORIS SAID

Thanks to their relationship with multi-team owner Jack Roush, partners Said and crew chief Frank Stoddard may not have many employees or a pit crew for Daytona -- but they've got a locked-in spot in the Great American Race for their No. 26 Latitude 43 Motorsports Ford.

Lacking that spot is something that's caused the standout road racer, who has plenty of speedway speed and who won the pole for the 2006 Pepsi 400 at Daytona and finished fourth in his own No. 60 No Fear Racing Ford, a lot of anguish.

Daytona's unique two-part qualifying system for the 500 means only two cars are locked into the field in pole qualifying. A pair of 150-mile qualifying races set the rest of the lineup, but the burden of having 35 cars pre-qualified leaves as few as three spots per 150 available.

"I can't even tell you what [having a guaranteed spot] is going to be like," Said said. "The four years I've tried to make the 500 -- I've made it twice and missed twice -- and how hard it is mentally, how it is to try to qualify for that race, it's a tough system and a lot of pressure on people.

"I wish that a Jimmie Johnson or a Jeff Gordon or a Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. could experience that once cause it'll make you tough. I feel this year for people like Max Papis, or even Michael Waltrip -- it's going to be tough for him. And I feel like I've hit the lottery, to be able to come down here and relax all week and know that I'll be in the greatest race in the world come Sunday [Feb. 14]."

There are a lot of things that stand between Said having not only a successful Speedweeks, but also succeeding in the 35 races that follow it. The first hurdle Latitude 43 crossed was getting sponsorship that'll allow it to race in the Daytona 500, which is on the verge of being announced.

"I just signed it [Thursday] and in the agreement they asked me not to announce anything, because they want to announce it," Said said. "There will be two cars with the same sponsor on it at Daytona. The other car they're sponsoring at Daytona, he called me up and offered it to me, so I said, 'Do you want to drive the car?'

"And he said, 'No, no -- you're going to drive the car and I'm going to drive the other car.' So that was another thing with a really good friend and I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be [big] -- they're going to bring a lot of people down and have a big hospitality suite so hopefully we can put up a good effort for 'em." (Continued)