Winning at Daytona presents long odds. But so does making it as a NASCAR driver.

One of his most recent success stories is of Sam Mayer — who Ranier met when Mayer was 11 years old with the goal of joining a NASCAR national series when he turned 18. (Mayer did this, by the way, when he signed with JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series in June 2021. Mayer made the Xfinity Series Championship 4 this past season at 20 years old.)

Ranier fields calls from parents with regularity who have questions about what it would take for their child to make it as a racer. In Mayer’s case, it required traveling across the country as a 13-year-old every weekend to different tracks.

Part of the initial conversation, too, involves a simple question Ranier asks: “Can you financially handle this?”

It’s no secret that racing cars is expensive. Starting at the Legends level, if families want to run a national schedule, that’s going to cost “anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000” a year, Ranier said. That number only increases as prospective drivers ascend in their careers and makes obtaining sponsorships vital. For instance, running a national season at the Super Late Model level, which is considered the premier division of asphalt short track racing in the U.S., could cost upward of $250,000, all expenses included, Ranier said.

Racing being an expensive sport, Ranier explained, isn’t a new phenomenon.

“The bottom line is somebody has been paying for this all along,” he said.

The great race car drivers ‘who never make it’

It’s not an uncommon story for drivers to run out of funding and see their race car driving dreams run dry. Greg Van Alst has nearly given up on his racing dreams several times because of financial issues, wrecking out his final car or what have you, but he’s continually been pulled back into the sport. Van Alst is now a racer in a semi-pro league that feeds into NASCAR called the ARCA Menards Series. At various points in his past and at various racing levels, he said, teams would either pass him over or he’d be replaced by drivers with sponsorships who traveled with them.

Troubles with sponsorships still follow Van Alst. Last February, he won the season-opening ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway, and in a teary moment of catharsis, he yelled, “This is for all the short-track racers out there that don’t think you can get to this level; I worked my ass off to get here and we did it!” About 11 months later, a few weeks before this weekend in Daytona, he had to take to Twitter to ask if people could help him find sponsorships for the car he won in a year ago.

Even at the highest level, the idea of money impacting who gets which opportunity isn’t something NASCAR movers and shakers shy away from. Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, during the Stewart-Haas Racing announcement that Josh Berry would succeed the retiring Kevin Harvick, told reporters in June that he’s “not interested in some kid’s father coming in and buying their way into the Cup Series.” Kyle Busch, one of the winningest NASCAR drivers and one of the sport’s straightest shooters, shared a similar sentiment in May, a few days before the 2023 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“There are a lot of great, talented race car drivers out there who have never made it and will never make it,” Busch said. “I mean, it’s just fact. When I’ve raced Super Late Models across the country, I’ve raced against guys who are very, very talented and well capable of being able to make it up to the big time, but they never get there. They never have the right funding behind them or whatever it might be. Names off the top of my head: Scotty Hantz out of Indiana. Mike Rowe out of Maine. Bubba Pollard down here in the South. Fortunately Josh Berry (who rose up from short-track-badass obscurity to NASCAR Cup Series fame thanks to an improbable story) has made it, per se.

“So it’s guys like that I got the chance to go race against and have some fun with, racing against the best of the best across the country. Sometimes when you’re here in Cup, or in Xfinity, or whatever, the talent isn’t quite as grand as maybe it could be if you had all those types of guys here. It would be a lot tougher.

“But that’s opinion, so who knows?”

‘God had a plan for me’

It’s still a few hours before the Snowball Derby, on that sunny Pensacola Sunday in December, and Bubba Pollard feels good about his chances. A win here would mean a lot, he says. I eventually asked the question to Bubba directly: Why never NASCAR?

“I think it’s all about timing, where you’re at in your life, meeting the right people,” Pollard responds. He adds, carefully, thoughtfully: “My family, we’ve been fortunate. I enjoy doing what I do now. I love it. It’s who we are. I feel like NASCAR can get caught up — it’s so political in the corporate world. And God had a plan for me, I feel like, where I wasn’t built for that, maybe. It was in His plan for me to not move on to the next level, and I’m happy with what I’m doing. I enjoy it.”

Today, Pollard admits that all he wanted was a shot. That he just “wanted to do it one time.” He said he’s nevertheless happy for the short-track stars who are getting their shots in NASCAR — like Josh Berry and Ryan Preece — and he hopes “they prove to these guys there’s a lot of talent out here at the short-track level that never gets recognized.”

A few hours later, the Snowball Derby concluded. Bubba had the fastest car and charged for the lead late — but got wrecked out of contention in the final five laps. The rapturous bliss TJ and Tim Bryant forecasted would be delayed another year. No Dale Earnhardt-Daytona 500 moment.

Still, though, even an hour after the checkered flag flew, Pollard was being greeted by friend after friend, daughter after daughter, fan after fan. By the time the infield cleared out, you realized all spectators cared about was admiring the rarity he is. They were unconcerned about what he’d never done.