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."

But after Daytona, the team needs additional sponsorship to be able to race. Team owner Bill Jenkins, Said and Stoddard are among the group scrambling after it, but it's not all they need. Stoddard is preparing the cars with three other employees and admitted Friday they didn't know who'd pit the car in the 500.

"We're definitely the smallest effort in the shortest amount of time that's coming to Daytona," Said said with a chuckle. "We're really behind, and Frank's working on [the pit crew]. We're going to wait until Thursday [day of the Gatorade Duel qualifying races] and see who doesn't make the [500], and maybe steal a crew that way. Or maybe we'll put together a crew from the extras, between the Roush camps.

"Jack actually told me [Thursday], 'Any people we have that you need, you can have access to.' So that was another nice offer. But Frankie will figure it out [because] he's the brains behind that."

Said, a road-racing champion, has worked long and hard to get established in NASCAR and has such credibility he regularly exchanges text messages with team owners such as Rick Hendrick and Roush. A phone call from Roush connected Said and Stoddard, partners in No Fear Racing with Mark Simo, with Vermont businessman Jenkins.

"Jack really said, 'I've got these two guys, they're really good guys -- Boris and Frankie' -- and it was really on Jack's recommendation that [Jenkins] talked to Frankie and I, so I'm pretty excited about that," Said said. "[Jenkins] was just a successful Vermont businessman that wants to get into NASCAR. He came down and he knew that Jack Roush had to sell a team, and he negotiated with Jack Roush and bought the 26 team and all the equipment."

The result is 12 complete 2010-spec Roush Fenway Racing chassis, a Roush Yates engine deal and plenty of technical support sitting in Roush's former Truck Series shop in Mooresville, N.C.

As part of the deal, Said is leasing No Fear's facility, located in the heart of the Roush Fenway complex at the Concord (N.C.) Airport, as the base for Ford ally Richard Petty Motorsports.

"They're up-fitting it and making it look really nice," Said said. "So we had to move out of there."

But Roush's technical support, of which Said is familiar, remains.

"It's exactly the same as with No Fear," Said said. "The support I've gotten since we started our No Fear Racing team, where we'd run five or six races a year, at best -- we've gotten support to have cars as good as Carl Edwards', or any Roush car.

"That's something -- it cracks me up every time I see a text from a Jack Roush or a Rick Hendrick -- thinking where I was 10 or 15 years ago. Even my wife always bugs me [saying], 'Can you believe that Jack Roush always texts you?'

"I've been real fortunate that I've been able to forge these relationships and offer some things of value that I've had, like teaching their guys road racing. And he's [Roush] paid me back in spades by giving me all this information that makes it possible for a little team to compete."

It's the latest step in a part-business, part-sentimental connection between Said and Roush.

"Jack's been like a father to me," Said said. "He's been helping me as much as he can, giving us all the good information and it's really been a good relationship."

The latest step was Roush calling him to tip him off that the deal with Jenkins was in the making, and now that Speedweeks are at hand, Said told a tale of every time he goes into Daytona's infield media center, which is decorated with a plethora of large color photographs of significant events in Speedway history.

One of them is a shot of pole-sitter Said and outside front-row man and eventual race winner Tony Stewart leading the field to the start of the 2006 Pepsi 400.

"It's a feeling in my racing career that I'll never forget," Said said. "And every time I come here I just want that back again, so bad. Even though it's a huge long-shot this year, because we're starting really late -- but Frankie's really good at what he does and I think we'll be OK."

And if sponsorship comes through, the dream that would be the rest of the season beckons.

"My hope is to run a full year and I think I'm the closest I've ever been to doing it," Said said. "Now we have all the equipment in place to do it and the support set up to do it -- Doug Yates has the engines ready to do it and Ford's even going to give us a little help.

"So we just need to get that last piece, sponsorship, which right now is the hardest thing to find in racing."

Related:
• Roush Fenway transfers 26 car's owners' points to Latitude 43