Martin's hiatus matches Carmichael's stock debut (cont'd)

How do you prove racers are racers? Watch 'em mingle. Carmichael, his dad, who signed the insurance waiver in the track's infield "Ricky L. Carmichael," and a couple friends arrived at 11:30 a.m. after a two-hour trip from home.

After greeting the five-man Mark Martin Performance crew that was going to field Super Late Models for Carmichael and Martin's 15-year-old son, Matt -- who's won a FASCAR Truck Series feature at Columbia -- in less than 15 minutes at the track, the elder Carmichael and his entire group had migrated over to the crew pitted next to, but 35 yards away from, Martin's.

In a matter of moments, Ricky joined them and seconds later Boatwright was engaging them in an animated conversation that lasted more than 15 minutes more.

"This is good and I think it's going to be an enjoyable ride, I hope," the elder Carmichael said. "It's just like the motorcycles, just one big family, I hope.

"Sometimes things happen on the track and you get mad at each other, but hopefully, eventually you'll be back friends and having a good time and keep on keeping on.

"If we can catch on to this and do as good as we did in the motorcycle racing [it'll be fun] -- but it's going to be a tough road, I can see already."

The elder Carmichael was talking about his son's spin in his sixth lap, maybe, but it was one of few he made.

"What I seen in him [Friday] was the competitor in him," Fritts said. "I'm trying to tell him, 'Don't worry about what other people are running for lap times, and this and that.' I wanted him to just go out there and have a good time.

"But he's a racer. He's out there going, 'This guy's going faster than me -- we've got to do something.' That's what's going to make him go, higher and higher and to be good when he gets up there."

Carmichael said tuning the Late Model, which is perhaps the most intricate of short-track racecars, resembled the changes he would make with his Supercross mechanic.

But switching it from two wheels to four, again, was a pleasant shock to the Late Model veteran Fritts.

"It really surprised me," Fritts said. "We did a couple things to the car, right when we got here and I went out in it, just to get it close. And that's all we did, really, is to just get it close.

"For him to pick it up from there and to get as much faster as he did -- that's impressed me, already. Yeah, there's guys out there going a little bit quicker, but you don't ever know what they're using or trying to accomplish.

"You've got to compare yourself to your competitors, but sometimes you've just got to do what he's doing, just get out there and get the car comfortable to you, and then see what happens in the race. And I think we've got a good start on that.

"Just watching his line, I know we don't have the car 100 percent right. I know we've got it close, for him to go that good in it. But he might be a lot better than the car is -- we don't know that yet.

"We're going to make some changes to it Saturday and I think we can get it a lot better for him."

At day's end, the feeling was mutual between the two champion competitors.

"It's been unreal," Carmichael said of his first day of working with Fritts. "This was the first time I'd met him -- and I know Mark was real excited about it, super-pumped. He's a great attribute to the team and it's nice, because when we go to New Smyrna [another half-mile FASCAR track located just south of Daytona Beach] he's got those tracks wired.

"It's going to be amazing, and it's nice to have that backing."

"He's definitely got it," Fritts said, shaking his head. "When he moves up to the upper levels, like, when he gets to Nextel Cup, they're going to be surprised [because] just from watching him [Friday], I can tell."