Wise, McDowell preparing for possible Cup shot in '08

One is a two-time U.S. Auto Club champion following in the career footsteps of Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne. The other is an ARCA series runner-up who has competed in everything from stock cars to sports cars to Champ Cars. Together, Josh Wise and Michael McDowell represent the future of Michael Waltrip Racing -- a future that may become reality as soon as the sixth race of next year.

Dale Jarrett's impending retirement from full-time Nextel Cup competition opened the door for teammate David Reutimann to succeed the 1999 series champion in the organization's No. 44 car. That leaves a vacancy in the No. 00 Camry for 2008 that the team hopes to fill with either Wise or McDowell, both Michael Waltrip Racing development drivers who have enjoyed success on smaller circuits, but have little seat time in the cars and trucks employed in NASCAR's national divisions.

Josh Wise

2007 Truck Series stats

Race	Track	Start	Finish
5.	Kansas	15	17
9.	Texas	7	13
11.	Milwaukee	32	29
13.	Kentucky	15	21
15.	Nashville	5	19
17.	Gateway	25	8
19.	Las Vegas	23	6
20.	Talladega	11	23

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That's beginning to change. McDowell, who won four races in his first season in ARCA, recently tested a Nextel Cup car at Kentucky and is scheduled to compete in Saturday's Craftsman Truck event at Martinsville Speedway. Wise, who has one Busch and eight career Truck starts, plans to compete in the Truck race at Atlanta and may test a Cup car in the open session following that weekend. The Waltrip team plans to test both drivers almost weekly for the rest of the year, in the hopes that one or both will be ready to slide behind the wheel of the No. 00 when Reutimann takes over Jarrett's old ride in the spring race at Martinsville next year.

"We have two young men who are in our development program, and we don't know how long it's going to take them to be ready," said Waltrip's general manager Ty Norris. "If we think in six months that they're ready to go to Martinsville, or they're ready to go to Texas, and they've done enough other racing to show it, then that's probably the direction we'll go. But we don't want to make a mistake. The A.J. Allmendinger approach, he probably didn't have enough time to get comfortable before he was thrown into the fire."

The two drivers spent this season as teammates, racing for ARCA car owner Eddie Sharp. McDowell, a career road racer competing in stock cars and on ovals for the first time, won nine poles and four races and finished second overall behind champion Frank Kimmel. Wise, sharing a ride with Ken Butler III, posted six top-10s in 12 starts in addition to an average finish of 17th in eight Truck Series races. But the 24-year-old wonders if he's ready for the leap to NASCAR's top level; drivers well know that getting a chance too soon can be almost as bad as never getting a chance at all.

"It's cool, but it wouldn't hurt my feelings to run another year in Busch," said Wise, from Riverside, Calif. "Ideally for me, I'd like to get a full year in Busch and then just run enough Cup races to keep my rookie status next year, and be able to go and do it right and run a full Cup schedule with the experience I really need at all the tracks. But whatever they want me to do, of course, I'm going to do."

If that means Cup races, he feels he could perform. "From a driving standpoint, I feel I can go as fast as anyone," he said. "But there are just a lot of other factors and lot of things that come into play. Do I think I could do it if they put me in that situation? Absolutely, I could rise to the occasion. But as I said, it wouldn't hurt my feelings to work up to it a little more next year, run some Busch races and try to get some consistency and move on from there." (Continued)