Talent alone doesn't guarantee Cup ride
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- "I'm gonna be somebody. One of these days I'm gonna break these chains, I'm gonna be somebody someday. You could bet your hard-earned dollar I will."
Travis Tritt didn't have three-time Truck Series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. in mind when he wrote the lyrics to this country tune featured on a Hornaday Web site, but he could have.
He could have had a number of drivers from NASCAR's lower series in mind.
But just because they aren't in the Sprint Cup Series doesn't mean they aren't somebody. Many drivers who compete each week in the Nationwide and Truck series are just as talented as those in the premier series.
They just haven't gotten the right break or been in the right place at the right time, as they say in Hollywood.
Take Hornaday, for example. He won Truck titles in 1996, 1998 and 2007 and is the favorite to win another after collecting a record fifth straight win last weekend. He's had a few good years in the Nationwide Series as well, finishing in the top five in points three times between 2000 and 2004.
Yet the 51-year-old California native never had a legitimate shot in Cup, running only one full season, finishing 38th in points in 2001 for an A.J. Foyt team that didn't do much before or after him.
Part of it was age and geography. He spent most of his career on the West Coast, and by the time Dale Earnhardt noticed him in the mid-'90s, he wasn't the young, marketable hotshot sponsors were seeking.
But what if he had been? What if he had been offered a ride in top-notch equipment at Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing?
"Ron Hornaday could race with any of those given the right opportunity," said Jason Keller, a lifetime Nationwide Series driver who like Hornaday has had only a cup of coffee in Cup. "No ifs, ands or butts about it."
Jack Ingram, who won two Nationwide titles, seconds that.
"If he would have been in North Carolina driving late-model sportsman cars around these tracks in the Southeast he wouldn't have been doing it for long," Ingram said. "He would have had an opportunity, that's for sure."
Opportunity. It's what most in the lower series dream of. Some knock on doors and pass out business cards as Carl Edwards did. Some get the help of a big-time agent as Jeff Gordon did from Cary Agajanian.
Some are in the right place at the right time as Greg Biffle was in 1995-'96 when he caught the eye of late Hall of Fame driver Benny Parsons, who recommended him to Cup owner Jack Roush.
Some are lucky as three-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was when he asked Gordon for advice knowing he was losing sponsorship for his then-Busch Series ride at Herzog Motorsports.
It could come down to, as Cup star Kasey Kahne noted, "winning the right race at the right time and having a certain seat open up when you're on a roll."
Yes, it's all about timing.
"There are so many people that are talented enough to be doing it that never have gotten a chance," Cup driver Jeff Burton said. "There's a guy running fourth or fifth or sixth at a local racetrack right now that nobody would consider.
"But if he were in the right opportunity he could win in a Cup car."
If Hornaday were 25 there's no way a Cup owner wouldn't snap him up today. But like many drivers in a lower series, he's been stereotyped, painted in a box.
"There's any number of guys that could do the job," David Reutimann said. "It's got nothing to do with talent or ability. They just haven't been in the right situation and gotten a break to do it."
Well, talent has a lot to do with it. Johnson was average for an underfunded Nationwide team, but he's one of the most talented Cup drivers ever.
"I wish I had that magic equation for you," Keller said. "I don't."
It's no different for actors or writers or stock car drivers. History is littered with people of great ability who never made it to the top level of their profession.
But since we are here to talk about drivers, let's look at five other than Hornaday who, to steal a line from Tritt, never got to be somebody in Cup:
Jack Ingram
He won Nationwide Series titles in 1982 and '85 and finished second the two seasons in between. He won 31 events and had 164 top-10s in 275 races.
Yet he never ran more than five Cup races in a season, competing in only 19 overall.
Don't feel sorry for him, though. He did this by choice. "I never made it to the Cup level because I didn't want to," said Ingram, who at 73 still runs a Late Model Sportsman team at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina.
There were offers, from the legendary Junior Johnson on down. But when Ingram was at the height of his career, beating the likes of Darrell Waltrip and Harry Gant on a regular basis, the money in Cup wasn't worth the headache of giving up something he was happy doing.
"I did what I wanted to and I did it better than anybody's ever been in racing," he said. "They couldn't nobody beat me nowhere in my prime."
Sam Ard
He won Nationwide Series titles in 1983 and '84 and was second in his only other season in '82. He had 22 victories in 92 events, an amazing winning percentage of 23.9. He ran only one Cup race, completing one lap of a 1984 race at Martinsville.
"Anyone who was out there in those early [Nationwide Series] days will tell you what was one of the greatest challenges of their entire career -- beating Sam Ard," former Cup champion Dale Jarrett once said.
Ard likely would have gotten a shot at Cup had his career not ended prematurely because of head injuries suffered in a 1984 race. He now lives in Pamplico, S.C., suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases.
"He could have been just like the Earnhardts, one of the best," said his wife, Jo.
David Green
He won the 1994 Nationwide title and finished second two other times. He won nine races and had 144 top-10s in 396 events. That never translated into success on the Cup level, where in 78 events from 1997 to 2004 he never had a top-10.
His problem was simple: He never landed with a top team, or even one funded or staffed well enough to compete with the top teams as his Nationwide program did.
He was fired in 1999 after a third straight subpar season and drove only a handful of Cup races after that.
Jason Keller
He has run in more Nationwide events (478) than anybody, with 10 finishes inside the top 10 in points, including second in 2000 and 2002. He has 10 wins and 172 top-10s.
Yet he's driven in only two Cup events, both in 2003.
"When I won my first race at IRP I was 25 years old," recalled Keller, ninth in points this season. "If I had a powerful agent at that time it would have happened. There's no doubt in my mind it would have happened."
It didn't. That's because Keller was focused on building his own Nationwide team and a family in Greenville, S.C. Although less than two hours from the hub of racing in Charlotte, he wasn't willing to make the permanent move it may have taken to compete in Cup.
He also wasn't a great self-promoter.
"I'll be the first to admit that," he said. "I never have been the guy to pick up the phone and call Cup owners and managers and say, 'Put me in a car! Put me in a car!'"
That doesn't mean Keller wouldn't jump at a Cup ride if the right one came along. He jumped in the car for an ill-feeling Kahne last season at Phoenix "and was just as fast as he was."
"There's just a lot of us given the right opportunity that can make it happen," Keller said. "It's just we've never taken the opportunity or it just hasn't been just right when it came along."
Randy LaJoie
He won Nationwide titles in 1996 and '97 and finished no worse than 12th in points during a seven-year span. He won 15 races, including five apiece in his title-winning years.
He ran only 44 Cup races, no more than 14 in one season. Again, this was by choice. He wanted to be a father more than a Cup driver, but there's no doubt in his mind he could have been a star in the premier series.
And he had several opportunities, including driving Hendrick Motorsports' Budweiser car for nine races in 1998.
"I had a nice contract to drive that car the following year," said LaJoie, who had three top-10s in the nine events. "It probably would have cost me a marriage due to the fact those Budweiser girls were really nice on my eyes. I didn't want that to happen."
He really wanted to be with his kids, to be at their ballgames and go-kart races. He knew a Cup job was 24-7.
"At 24-5 you could be the best Busch racer," he said.
There are a lot more stories like this. For every driver who has succeeded in Cup there are hundreds who never got the chance.
"I don't know what the secret is," Reutimann said. "Some guys get passed over and you don't understand why."
Some are never gonna be somebody someday -- at least not in Cup.
David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.
