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I have been looking through the entry list for the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. I had plans to write something about road course ringers or some such.  Fact is, there aren’t that many ringers any more.  But there are an awful lot of experienced road racers driving Dodges this weekend in wine country.

Start with the Ganassi Racing trio of defending race winner Juan Pablo Montoya and teammates Dario Franchitti and Scott Pruett - strongest driver line-up in the race. Gillette- Everham has red hot Kasey Kahne with Patrick Carpentier - who will be good - and Elliott Sadler.  Penske’s Kurt Busch is strong here as is Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr is experienced turning both ways.  The Labonte brothers will make Petty Enterprises a factor. Robby Gordon might be a favorite to win this thing.

No manufacturer has a stronger driver roster for Sonoma this year than Dodge.

Photo credit: Photo Credit: Mike Doran

This weekend has the potential for being one of my favorite race weekends of the year–even without a Sprint Cup race.

The racing will be hot and heavy this Saturday as the ARCA Remax Series heads to Iowa Speedway. Iowa has become one of race drivers favorite tracks in its short history. ARCA Remax Series points leader Justin Allgaier was this weeks guest on INSIDE ARCA, fresh off his win at Salem Speedway at the Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 presented by Federated Auto Parts. Allgaier is looking forward to racing at the .875 mile progressively banked oval.

Allgaier will face stiff competition from Michael Annett, as he looks for his third consecutive win. Annett has won the last two races he has entered in the ARCA Remax Series at Talladega in 2007 and the season opener at Daytona this year. Annett is a DeMoines, IA native and thus feels he has a home town advantage.

“I expect to run up front,” said Annett. “I have a lot of confidence in myself and the equipment I’m in. As competitive as the ARCA RE/MAX Series is, to run up front you’ve got to be with a good team. I ran my first three ARCA races with Country Joe Racing, and now with Bill Davis Racing, so I’ve always been with really good teams. I put pressure on myself. I’m with an excellent team now; everything’s in place. It’s up to me from here.”

Also looking to get back on track, both literally and figuratively, is 19 year old Ali Owens who suffered several broken bones in a motorcycle accident in March.

“When the doctor told me that I might miss Iowa I thought no way,” said Owens, driver of the No. 12 ElectrifyingCareers.com Chevrolet. “I focused all my energy on recovery. I worked as hard as I could with my trainer and followed my doctor’s orders and everything worked out. I feel great.”

Great racing and interesting personalities is what ARCA is all about. Combine those with a terrific race track and the 1:30pm ET start time on SPEED with INSIDE ARCA’s insider, Phil Parsons, can’t be missed.

Sunday’s action shifts south of the border to the Mexico City race in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. Joining the usual cast of Nationwide characters will be Scott Pruett, Boris Said, Patrick Carpentier, Sam Hornish, Jr., and Max Papis. Last year’s last lap shunt involving Pruett and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya had fans talking for weeks. While Montoya will not race in Mexico City in 2008, fans can expect similar thrills as veteran Australian road racer Marcos Ambrose is one of the Nationwide Series regulars to watch.

No Cup race–but this is going to be a fun weekend. I predict no fuel mileage runs in these races. Chances are there will be some good hard nose racing.

photo credit: arcaracing.com

Come up with the best caption for this picture taken of Mark Martin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday, prior to winning the Sam’s Town 300 and I have a great prize for ya.

Martin captured the Nationwide Series win driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s, JR Motorsports team. He did manage to take out his teammate-for-a-day, Brad Kesolowski, in the #88 Navy entry from JRM along the way. I’m thinking the caption should be….

If a Jedi…. uh I mean winner, you will become, careful on the track you must be, Luke…. uh Brad.

Maybe not.

We have a very cool hoodie sweatshirt from Boris Said and No Fear Racing for the winner. The contest runs through Tuesday, March 4 at 3 pm ET. To enter, give us your idea for the caption in the comment section of this post. We’ll announce the winner during Tuesday’s ON PIT ROW .

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc

Boris Said is an ON PIT ROW favorite. He said yesterday that he’s either going to get his 7 Eleven - Spurpie - No Fear Racing Fusion into the Daytona 500 or it’s going home in a basket. Boris will be racing with six other go-or-go homers for two spots in NASCAR’s Super Bowl.

Warren Wallace’s other second cousin, Kenny Wallace,  Red Bull twins  Brian Vickers andA J Allmendinger, Awesome Bill Elliott, Daytona winner Sterling Marlin and Carl Long are the competition for Boris in race number one of the Gatorade Dual 150′s.

The wild card in that race is Kurt Busch.  Busch’s owner’s points were transferred to teammate Sam Hornish Jr meaning Kurt has to either qualify on time or use his champion’s provisional to race a Sunday.  In typical, stupid, Top 35 Rulefashion; if Busch is slow, he and two other drivers will transfer from this race.  If he’s quick enough, it will leave just one other spot for someone else.  I think Boris will edge the Toyotas and put another Ford in the big race.

Race two also has two starting spots up for grabs. Patrick Carpentier was the fastest of the bubble boys and he looked good in pole qualifying Sunday, using a driving line different from most everyone else. He’s up against fellow Canadian open wheel refugee Jacques Villenueve, veterans Dale Jarrett, Ken Shrader and John Andretti, Eric McClure and Stanton Barrett Jr.

Michael Waltrip said Sunday that Jarrett was getting all the best stuff from the MWR garage. If they had one car that was better or an engine that ran stronger, DJ was going to get it.  Then Wednesday, they found that DJ had one of the engines that needed to be replaced. He’ll start at the back of the field and that won’t help. Shrader’s telling anybody who’ll listen how slow his Dodge has been. Andretti, McClure and Barrett are big underdogs. This one looks like it’s all Mapleleafs to me but Jarrett is next in line to use the champion’s provisional should Kurt Busch race his way to a starting spot.

To quote Warren - or is it Lauren - Wallace “the schooling starts right now.”

Congress needs to step in and right this wrong that’s being perpetrated on the sporting public.

In the midst of hearings to determine whether baseball players used steroids and if a certain football team taped practices of other teams, there is one topic that is much more important to look into. And its being ignored completely. Our esteemed members of congress need to convene to revamp the national holiday schedule.

As the culture of the United States changes, no longer can people relate to Presidents Day. Many US citizens don’t have the faintest clue about Lincoln or Washington. Labor Day–forget it–not much of a work ethic these days.

Congress needs to change these National Holidays, and we could probably add a couple of those “bank holidays” as well; to something that the average American can relate to. National Sports Days.

The National Sports Days plan would give every American six days off work, for sporting event patronage. Need to have the day off after the Super Bowl? That Monday could be one of your NSD days. I know that translates into “National Sports Day day”. Do you work the night shift and your team makes it to the World Series? Use your NSDs to watch, or attend.

Later today two of my favorite races will be televised by SPEED, live, and I will not be able to watch. I love The Duels. The format for qualifying for The 500 is unique, a bit convoluted, but unique, none the less. There have been many years where the results have had little interest to me, as far as who made the race and who didn’t. My guy would be in; but it was just a lot of fun to watch as desperate people had to resort to desperate measures to make THE race.

Tuesday ON PIT ROW, I picked Boris Said to win the 500. Yeah, I know, there was no gaurantee he would even be in the race. That’s what makes seeing this race so important to me. I want to see what Boris, and Herman, and Sterling, and all the others do to try and get themselves, their cars and their sponsors into The Great American Race.

Hello–Ted–I won’t be into work today. Write me up for a NSD. Oh and I’ll take one on Sunday too, if you have the unmitigated gall to schedule me to work. I’ll be watching the Daytona 500 and talking about it via live blog.

Be sure to log in to onpitrow.com on Sunday starting at 2pm ET. We had a great time with the live blog during the awards banquet. This will be even better.

Photo credit: Robert Leberge/Getty Images/NASCAR

So Robby Gordon is switching from Ford to Dodge - who cares you say?

Ford fans ought to. At the end of the 2007 Nextel Cup season, the Blue Oval brigade looked to be a solid number two in the manufacturer’s championship race going into 2008’s inaugural Sprint Cup Series season. The thinking was Roush-Fenway Racing had slipped up and fallen behind the CoT and general testing programs of the big Chevy outfits. The Ford faithful assumed that Jack Roush would straighten out the problems and restore Ford to at least competitive equality with the dominant Hendrick-Gibbs-Childress troika.

Observers of preseason testing are telling us otherwise. The Joe Gibbs Racing move to Toyota has boosted that brand’s prospects. Many experts think that Toyota may well jump to number two status. Boris Said told us on last week’s ON PIT ROW that the speed and sheer numbers of the Toyotas will make it very tough for his Ford team to qualify for non-road course races.

Ford vs Dodge

The real question is; can Ford keep from falling to fourth, behind Dodge in the Cup Series? Look at the rosters of the two makes and compare.

Ford teams will field eight full time teams in 2008, led by Roush-Fenway’s fivesome. Dodge enters 2008 with a lucky thirteen. Seven of Ford’s eight have top 35 owner’s points while Dodge gets twelve of it’s thirteen in each of the first five races. So far it looks like, advantage Dodge, if quantity counts. If you’re one of those quality folks - here’s my personal Power Ranking of the Ford vs Dodge NASCAR battle.

1. #17 Ford -Matt Kenseth - past champ, two time 2007 race winner and Chaser
2. #2 Dodge - Kurt Busch - see above
3. #99 Ford - Carl Edwards - three time race winner in 2007 and Chaser
4. #12 Dodge - Ryan Newman - 12 career wins, no Chase but a solid 2007
5. #9 Dodge - Kasey Kahne - Bad 2007 but won 6 in 2006 - just a hunch
6. #16 Ford - Greg Biffle - Missed the Chase but got a win
7. #26 Ford - Jamie McMurray - see Biffle
8. #42 Dodge - Juan Pablo Montoya - 2007 Rookie of the Year won a race too
9. #43 Dodge - Bobby Labonte - past champ finished ahead of Kahne and Montoya
10. #41 Dodge - Reed Sorenson - his 2007 points put him here
11. #6 Ford - David Ragan - ditto
12. #19 Dodge - Elliott Sadler - very tempted to rate higher
13. #7 Dodge - Robby Gordon - ditto
14. #38 Ford - David Gilliland - The Yates team is Ford’s wild card, they hope
15. #40 Dodge - Dario Franchitti - I think the 2008 ROY will drive a Dodge
16. #28 Ford - Travis Kvapil - see Gilliland
17. #21 Ford - Bill Elliott et al - Awesome Bill’s provisionals will payoff later with starts
18. #45 Dodge - Kyle Petty - Must stay in the top 35
19. #77 Dodge - Sam Hornish Jr - My pick for ROY, but I’m hedging that bet
20. #10 Dodge - Patrick Carpentier - Going to have a tough time qualifying to race

I give the nod to Dodge. Kurt Busch and Kenseth are a push. Maybe the Ford boys get a slight edge in slots 3 through 8 but Newman and Kahne have championship capability in them - it’s close. The Dodge advantage is in depth and the fact that it’s major teams are all aggressive and growing. I like the look of Gillette-Evernham, Penske, Ganassi-Sabates and even Petty Enterprises over Roush-Fenway and the struggling Yates and Wood Brothers.

Picture credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Boris Said can flat out drive–anything.

Got a Grand-Am Daytona Prototype you need raced?  How about a GT car, or a bobsled?  Are you a big time NASCAR owner with a couple of hot shoes who can’t run the road courses and need some tutoring?  Who ya gonna call?

Why, Boris Said , of course.  So why is it that when there are rides to be had on a full time basis, nobody is calling Boris?  He’s no spring chicken, after all, but then again neither are most of the current rookie class.

Boris is everything a NASCAR team owner should be  looking for; a racer’s racer, glib, unassuming and willing to have fun doing what he loves to do almost as much as race–talk.  It’s no wonder there are so many “Said-heads” at the track when Boris is behind the wheel.

He paid a visit to ON PIT ROW on Tuesday night and gave his views on NASCAR and the top 35 rule.  A rule he is not too crazy about, but accepts that it is here to stay and is willing to live with–even when it bites him in the butt as it did at Daytona last July.

Boris can’t seem to figure out why everyone is wearing the Said fro wig at the race track; after all  he was born with that mess.

To hear the entire interview with Boris Said, tune in to  the rebroadcast of ON PIT ROW at www.racetalkradio.com on  Thursday , January 31 at 7pm ET.

Picture credit: BethAnne Heisler - ON PIT ROW

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