Kelly Bires hated it, but he knew he had no other choice. With no steady ride and no sponsor behind him, he did the only thing he could to make sure people saw him at the race track as much as possible. He drove a start-and-park car.

He did it a few times, actually, filling the gaps between events with regular Nationwide Series teams like Braun Racing, Kevin Harvick Inc., and the JTG Daugherty team he drove for during all of 2008. For a driver who had finished inside the top 10 six times last year, it was clearly a galling experience. But the sponsorship market was tough. Full-time rides were difficult to come by. So he swallowed his pride and made a few starts in cars that were clearly going nowhere but right back to the garage area.

“

It's probably one of the toughest years of racing that I've had to go through. Just going to the race track, [finishing] only three or four times so far this year.

”

-- KELLY BIRES

"I can tell you there's nothing fun about starting and parking from a racer's standpoint," said Bires, a 25-year-old from Mauston, Wis. "There were some I had to do. There were some where I felt like if I could get in the car and qualify really well, extremely well, then maybe that would turn a couple of heads and show some people what I could do. They weren't fun at all. It was just part of the deal this year that I had to do. I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore."

Not for the foreseeable future, at least. Last month Bires signed a two-year deal with JR Motorsports to succeed Brad Keselowski, who is moving to the Sprint Cup tour with Penske Racing next season. For Bires, it's a welcome relief from the purgatory of career limbo, which began last year when sponsorship woes beset his program at JTG. Completing the 2008 season with a patchwork of sponsors, he still managed to finish 13th in points in his first full campaign on NASCAR's No. 2 circuit.

But he was nervous about 2009, and with good reason. Bires, a former go-kart and late model standout who moved to the Charlotte area in 2004 to further his NASCAR career, couldn't have timed it worse -- his climb up the career ladder coincided with an economic recession and consequent sponsorship shortage that hit the Nationwide Series particularly hard. So far in 2009 he's made 12 starts with five different teams, some of them powerhouses like KHI, and others shoestring outfits in it for a check.

Bires has managed a pair of top-five finishes, one more than he had in all of last season, but has been running at the finish only three times. He hasn't raced since Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. As of Wednesday, he wasn't listed on the entry list for Saturday's event at Kansas Speedway.

"It's probably one of the toughest years of racing that I've had to go through," Bires said. "Just going to the race track, [finishing] only three or four times so far this year, but doing what I had to do to stay alive and stay strong. Just the opportunity that came aboard here with JR Motorsports, I can't explain how excited I am about it with the emotional roller coaster I've been on. But to know I have something in place for the next two years, that's a tremendous relief."

Bires' best result this year was a fourth-place finish at Nashville in a KHI car. He's made two starts this season for Harvick, and has another slated for Oct. 24 at Memphis. But the timing just wasn't right to try and put together a full-time deal for 2010.

"Kevin came to me and helped me out, believed in my ability and was really cool about it and gave me an opportunity to get in a top-notch car," Bires said. "They just didn't have anything full-schedule for next year for the time being. And JR Motorsports came to me ready to go, locked and loaded. It's a no-brainer. Both organizations are extremely well-put-together. Nothing against KHI. But this opportunity for me at JR Motorsports, it was a no-brainer for me at the time."

Now, he's on the brink of quite the career turnaround. Only a few months ago, Bires was a driver desperate for a ride, and willing to slide behind the wheel of almost any car he could find. Beginning in February, he'll be at the controls of a vehicle capable of winning the Nationwide championship, and see his profile rise because of his association with NASCAR's most popular driver. Is he ready for the scrutiny that will follow?

He believes so. For Bires, the most difficult part has been just getting into the car.

"The hardest thing for me in this sport has just been to get in a race car," he said. "The performance on the track to me is the easiest part. The part of driving the car is the easiest part for me. It's just been, the time when I got into the sport here, it's been difficult to get into race cars without proper funding or proper sponsorship. It was just bad timing. But to be able to drive for Dale Jr., a great guy, I've known him for pretty much all the years I've been in NASCAR, and relate to him in a lot of different things. He definitely believes in my ability."