Car Of Tomorrow Adds Mystery To Cup Race

Saturday, August 11th 2007, 5:38 pm

By: News On 6

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) _ Starting from the pole at Watkins Glen International usually is a good omen in Nextel Cup. But racing the Car of Tomorrow for the first time on the high-speed road course without much practice promised a few surprises for Sunday's Centurion Boats at The Glen.

Although the race winner has started from the pole eight times in the previous 21 Cup races, there's a feeling that hardened road racers, such as Canada's Ron Fellows and crowd favorite Boris Said, might have their best chance yet of securing that elusive victory.

``With the old cars, if you had success you could go off and build on it,'' said points leader Jeff Gordon, who has four wins at Watkins Glen and a NASCAR-record nine road course triumphs in his career. ``Now, it's basically starting from scratch. Experience is not going to play as much of a role.

``I think this car really equals out the competition,'' said Gordon, who was awarded the pole when qualifying was canceled Friday because of a misting rain. ``In the past, we had great races with Ron Fellows and Scott Pruett and those guys. I would say our cars were probably a little better than theirs, and that's why we were able to beat them. But in this situation, I think those guys could possibly really shine. They've got a lot of laps here, they're good here.''

Fellows has won three Busch Series races at Watkins Glen and twice finished second in Cup _ to Jeff Gordon in 1998 and Stewart three years ago despite starting last. Said was third two years ago, while Pruett, who is not in the race, finished second to Robby Gordon in 2003 and was fourth two years ago.

It will be an uphill battle. Fellows will start 26th in the Chevrolet normally driven by Tony Raines, and Said, who is replacing Bill Elliott in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford, will start from the back of the 43-car field.

``It's going to be more difficult because I don't believe these cars have as much downforce as the old stock car,'' Fellows said. ``That's going to make it tougher, and they've still got tremendous horsepower, so we're going to be going awfully fast in a straight line.''

Not everybody thinks one of the so-called ``road-course ringers'' has that good of a chance at victory. No outsider has won a Cup race since Mark Donohue at now-defunct Riverside Raceway for Roger Penske's team.

``You look at guys who have run really well on the road courses the last couple of years and it's Jeff Gordon, myself and Kevin Harvick,'' said Tony Stewart, who has three wins and a second in his previous four starts at The Glen. ``There hasn't been a road-course ringer to win a race yet, so I don't know why everybody uses that in the equation.

``You still have to beat the same guys that have been winning, and all you have to do is look at the stats. The stats will tell you who you've got to beat.''

Rookie Juan Pablo Montoya is one of them. He won a Busch Series road race in Mexico in March and at Sonoma in June, which turned into a fuel strategy affair in the closing laps. Montoya was followed across the finish line by the Richard Childress Racing trio of Harvick, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer, who were on the same pit sequence and did not have enough fuel to make another lap.

``We wound up saving a lot of fuel and kind of held pace with what we had on the race track,'' Harvick said. ``In the end, he (Montoya) wound up making it and we wound up second. But if we had pushed any harder, we would have run out of gas. We had two-tenths of a gallon left.''

``I think a lot of eyes got opened at Sonoma and what the pit strategy could be and should be,'' said Jeff Gordon, who started that race from the rear of the field after his crew chief was penalized for a technical violation and still finished seventh. ``I would imagine you're going to see a lot of that same thing play out here, guys trying to figure out how to do it on a two-stop strategy.''

With only five races remaining before the cutoff for the Chase for the Nextel Cup title, that probably won't include the guys fighting for the final spots in the top 12 of the standings. They'll start near each other because the field was set by points. Kurt Busch is 12th _ 35 points behind Martin Truex Jr. and just seven points ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., while Ryan Newman is 14th, 83 points behind Junior.

Only the top 12 drivers in the standings after the first 26 races qualify to race for the championship over the final 10 races of the season.

``It's one of those things, risk versus reward,'' said Jeff Gordon, who will qualify for the Chase with a finish here of 12th or better. ``If you're trying to make it into the Chase, the risk isn't worth it. When you're pretty much locked into the Chase, then the risk could be worth it.''