OH SO CLOSE; Tony Stewart won the race but the weekend belonged to Boris Said.(Motorsports)

Byline: AL PEARCE

The race was Tony Stewart's. Big deal, huh? Been there, done that. Twenty-five other times in fact, most recently last April in Martinsville. The Pepsi 400 in Daytona Beach certainly wasn't routine, but neither was it one of Stewart's memorably spectacular performances, either.

Now, that good ol' boy Boris Said... that cat was a different deal altogether.

With all due respect to Stewart and his hardworking crew, the Nextel Cup weekend at Daytona International Speedway belonged to the "Said-Heads.'' So much so, in fact, the pole-sitter and fourth-place finisher was speechless. Well, as speechless as possible after almost stealing his first Cup win with a new team that is still trying to memorize its phone numbers.

"This is like a win for us,'' Said said (get ready, spell-check) after a pit gamble gave him the lead with 11 laps remaining in the 160-lap race. Despite old tires, Said held firm until Stewart (on four fresh Goodyears) finally swept past at lap 158. Stewart brought along Kyle Busch and big brother Kurt, leaving Said with his second-best Cup finish in 23 career starts. (Said's best was third last summer at Watkins Glen, but this one looks better on his resume.)

"I was thinking, `I've got to hold off that 20 car,' but he was fast and I couldn't,'' Said said. "This is what you live for when you're racing. It's fun to see daylight [leading]. It's the biggest thing I've ever accomplished in racing. This is great and I'm speechless.''

The story began 10 years ago when Said was racing for Jack Roush in Trans-Am. On occasion he moved aside so teammate Tommy Kendall could win and pad his points lead. Roush thanked Said by promising to someday repay the favors. True to his word, Roush recently offered to help Said, businessmen/racers Mark and Brian Simo, and crew chief Frankie Stoddard with their start-up team. Roush sold them used Ford Fusions and arranged for Yates-Roush power. The skeleton No. 60 Sobe-No Fear team debuted with a ninth at Sonoma last weekend and finished even better in Daytona Beach.