Veteran Shepherd a barebones owner-driver

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- It's several hours before the truck race at Martinsville Speedway, and Morgan Shepherd stands amid a sea of racing tires, wielding an air gun.

The NASCAR veteran doesn't have the luxury of sleeping in, or dictating his driving preferences to someone else. As a barebones owner-driver, he changes hats according to need, becoming a mechanic, travel agent or bean-counter whenever the situation demands it.

"I've having fun," Shepherd said. "It's just hard when you don't have no people and you pick up help, they're not experienced, and it's hard for them to do what you want them to. So that's why I have to run around and make sure we get everything done right."

It's an ironic sort of Saturday morning. Former Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip has come out of retirement to compete in the season's third truck race, and most of the media and garage attention is focused on the 55-year-old DW, Shepherd's age contemporary.

No one beckons for the latter's attention. And although life is more complicated than he'd like it, Shepherd can empathize -- growing older hasn't weaned him of the desire to race. He's in his second season on the truck circuit, and he'll turn 60 on Oct. 21.

"For whatever reason, the Lord has blessed me with my health and I know that everybody can't do what I do," said Shepherd, the series' oldest competitor. "I still roller-skate and drive a race car 200 miles-an-hour. But that's not what my life is about. It's to encourage people to take care of themselves. It's not over after 50 years old."

Shepherd hasn't totally shelved his Winston Cup dream, either. He has 481 Cup starts and four Cup wins under his belt, and his last Cup foray came in 1999, when he drove one race for Junie Donlavey. His last full-time season was a 23-race stint in 1997. His last Cup win came in 1993, in Atlanta.

"Our plans were to be here at Martinsville," Shepherd said of Sunday's Virginia 500. "We had a guy who was supposed to help us with the engine up here and at the last minute he backed out. We're ready to go Winston Cup racing. We've got the shop and facilities, but just don't have the money to operate." Martin Shepherd has 481 Winston Cup starts and four Cup wins. Jamie Sabau/Allsport

The fact a Cup engine costs approximately $40,000 doesn't help. So Shepherd has cast his lot with NASCAR's Craftsman Truck series, where he ran 16 races last season and finished 26th in the final points standings. His nine DNFs were a bit harder to swallow.

"Last year we went to 16 races and some of them we couldn't even complete because we couldn't buy the tires," Shepherd said.

He speaks without resentment. Shepherd Racing was formed in 1998 with a $25-million-dollar sponsorship agreement to field a Cup team, but the insurance-company sponsor pulled out of the deal, leaving Shepherd on his own. Last year's $3,000 donation from a fan group was his sole source of outside aid.

"We're still racing without money," Shepherd said. "So there's only so much we can do. Our goal is to build our Christian team that we set out to do, and do things to help change people's lives. We're just looking for a sponsor."

A born-again Christian since Feb. 23, 1975, Shepherd is serious about establishing a Christian-oriented race organization. Someday, he'd like to find the right youngster to replace him in the driver's seat, but his most immediate problem is finding an appropriate sponsor.

"I've had the opportunities to advertise beer," Shepherd said. "I've had companies to call me and I won't do it for the money. I'll only do things that doesn't hurt people and there's a lot of people that don't like that, but there's a lot of people that we can change their lives, or encourage them with what we've got to say."

His message? Eat right, take care of yourself, and go to church. Simple enough, but realizing it has been everything except simple. A team's yearly costs in both the truck and Busch series averages $3-3 1/2 million. Annual Cup costs range from eight to $16 million. So Shepherd's wife Cindy, a teacher, helps whenever she can, and his 16-year-old daughter, the family's most rabid racing fan, lends moral support.

"I know there's Christian people out there that owns corporations," Shepherd said. "And we just got to get the word out to some of these people who'd liked to get involved with building this."