LONG POND, Pa. (AP) _ Stephen Leicht was a part-time Busch Series driver one week ago, hoping to work his way into a Nextel Cup ride.
Now he's the future of Robert Yates Racing, his NASCAR career put on the fast track when Elliott Sadler decided to leave the team. Ready or not, Leicht is going Cup racing. He'll make his debut Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
``I'm definitely going in circles right now,'' Leicht said Saturday. ``I haven't really had a chance to sit down and think about things. They told me on Monday that I was racing here and I said `OK.'''
The 19-year-old from Asheville, N.C., is way ahead of schedule. His resume shows only 10 Busch starts and a career-best finish of 10th at Kentucky last month.
It was all part of a plan that called for Leicht to run a partial Busch schedule in a car he shared with Sadler and Matt McCall, another RYR developmental driver.
But with RYR in shambles, everything has been accelerated as the company crosses its fingers in hopes Leicht can be NASCAR's next star.
Sadler opted out of his contract earlier this week, deciding he'd like to drive for a new team last year. Dale Jarrett made the same choice earlier this year, leaving Yates with two seats to fill in 2007.
Since Leicht is the driver farthest along in the pipeline, he seems destined to fill one of the vacancies.
``Every race this year in the Busch Series, he's run as well or better than Elliott and we feel we have a future with Stephen Leicht,'' co-owner Doug Yates said. ``Is he ready for Cup next year? I don't know. We'll let that take care of itself these next few weeks and the rest of the year.''
Leicht, who qualified 36th for the Pennsylvania 500, also will try to make the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in two weeks. That's where his focus is right now _ not on which car he might be driving next season.
``My mind-set when I go out for the races right now is don't make any mistakes, be smooth, finish on the lead lap and go out and earn the respect of these other drivers,'' he said. ``If I can do that here in the Cup races, maybe they'll say, `OK, next year we're going to put you in a bunch of Cup races.'''
He arrived at Pocono and promptly got a tutorial from Sadler, who took him around the track for two laps in a street car. Sadler pointed out where Leicht needed to lift and where he needed to get back to the throttle _ things Leicht had no clue about before the trip.
``I kind of had that in my head when I went out for the first time,'' said Leicht, who only ran 15 laps in practice before making his qualifying attempt. ``I used those points and those were pretty good points to start with and now I've started to go farther, but working off of that really helped a lot.''
Leicht now will try to complete all 500 miles unscathed without angering any other drivers. If he can pull it off, and then repeat it two weeks later in Indianapolis, he just might get himself a big-time promotion.
But if Sunday turns out to be a bust _ and it's quite possible it will be, because rain and fog washed out both of Saturday's practice sessions, costing Leicht valuable track time _ Leicht said he patiently will wait for his next chance.
``I didn't want to go too fast, I wanted to be ready,'' he said. ``Even though I'm not super-comfortable yet, if Robert does feel like I am ready, then I have to trust in them that they know what they're talking about.
``I feel like we'll have at least a couple of top fives before the end of the year in the Busch car and, hopefully, a couple of things go our way, we'll end up winning one.''
