Said: It was fun while it lasted

Boris Said saw his hopes of racing into the Daytona 500 come to an end in the Gatorade Duel when he was forced to retire from the second the second qualifying race.

Said, fresh from the announcement of a merger between his No Fear Racing team and Rick Clark Motorsports, had already tagged the wall once during the 60 lap race when he then suffered a blown tyre on the #08 Scotts/US Chrome Ford.

It saw him make contact with the Red Bull Toyota of Scott Speed which the turned Said into the wall, and put him into retirement.

"I ran into Ryan and got into the wall a little bit, and then the next lap, blew the right front out," he admitted. "It's just one of those things."

Said will now sit down to discuss the plans for the team for the remainder of the season, with the merger announcement having indicated that a schedule of between twelve and 18 races is likely during the year ahead.

"We'll sit down in the next few weeks and get a game plan and map it all out, and then see what' s in the future for our team," he said. "But, definitely, we're going to run some more races - I'm excited about that.

"I just feel real bad for Scotts and US Chrome. I think we had a pretty good car. It was wild out there. It was fun."