Where Was Tony?

Hired Guns?

6/22/03....... When the road races come up on the Cup schedule, there are usually two or three teams who resort to hiring a road racing specialist to bolster their chances for a good finish or maybe even a win. Usually a couple teams substitute their regular driver for the services of the hired gun and another team may field an extra ride for that particular race with a hired gun at the wheel.

Before this season's race at Infineon, there had been 14 races at the Sonoma, California facility, and none of these prior races have been won by a hired gun. They have all been won by established Cup race drivers:

Jeff Gordon - 1998, 1999, 2000
Rusty Wallace - 1990, 1996
Ricky Rudd - 1989, 2002
Ernie Irvan - 1992, 1994
Davey Allison - 1991
Dale Earnhardt - 1995
Geoff Bodine - 1993
Mark Martin - 1997
Tony Stewart - 2001

This season for the Sonoma race, six teams used "hired guns" to race their entries. Out of the six teams, who resorted to using ringers for the race, only four of the hired gun drivers qualified for the event. P J Jones tried unsuccessfully to qualify the No. 14 Harrah's sponsored A J Foyt Racing's Dodge, while Paul Menard failed to qualify the No. 33 Turtle Wax sponsored Chevrolet.

The ever insistent Boris Said, who would do just about anything for a permanent Cup ride, won the Bud pole with the No. 01 US Army Pontiac usually driven by Jerry Nadeau, and set a track record of 93.620 miles per hour in the process. Ron Fellows, the other insistent road racer who is always on the hired gun list qualified DEI's No. 1 Pennzoil Chevrolet in the third position. Scott Pruitt was hired as a fourth entry for Chip Ganassi Racing and qualified 18th in the No. 9 Target sponsored Dodge and Johnny Miller, who is currently leading the points in the Trans Am Series, qualified the No. 4 Kodak Pontiac in the 36th and final position on his time.

It remains to be seen how Boris Said's Bud pole win will affect the 2004 Bud Shootout for pole winners of the previous season. It may come to pass that some team owner will put him in a car for the event. It would be a big plus for said to be able to race in Cup competition other than the road races. MB2 Motorsports, owner of the No. 01, may put him in that ride for the shootout if Jerry Nadeau fails to win a pole this season. At this point, it's a hard call as to when and if Nadeau will be back in the driver's seat before the season finale in November.

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