Mayfield, Riggs come from nowhere to make 500 grid

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Scott Riggs and owner/driver Jeremy Mayfield used superspeedway Toyota Camrys that were built a year-and-a-half ago as "sisters," according to former Bill Davis Racing competition director Tommy Baldwin to make the Daytona 500 Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.

"We're here on a dream, we're not here on having billions and billions of dollars," Baldwin said while standing in front of his car in the inspection area. "Watching that car run in the top five for 80 percent of the race, and I know how much I spent on it and I know how much them other guys spent, so I proved to myself and I hope some other people that we can get the job done at a fraction of the cost and still give our [partner] good value just like everybody else."

Incredibly enough, in an era when hundreds in the motorsports community are jobless and hopes and dreams live and die on yellow flags, flat tires and fuel mileage, none of the crewmen on either team is even getting paid.

"Like I keep telling everybody, we got a real small race team but we've got real big hearts," said the veteran crew chief Baldwin, who out of necessity became a Cup team owner when the sale of Davis' race team left him jobless. "I'm overwhelmed at the amount of support that I've had with the group of guys that have kept coming to the shop, day in and day out, nighttime, daytime and weekends.

"They wanted no money -- they just wanted to help. We have nobody getting paid right now and we have between 15 and 25 coming every single day working on that thing. We had to get through this race and California and Vegas to build up enough capital so we can start paying these guys.

"These guys have been here for nothing because they feel our dream and they know, with them being loyal to me I'm going to give them a job. I'm hoping I can hire a hundred people some day. One step at a time and [Thursday] was an important step."

Mayfield, who was briefly in tears on pit road after getting out of his No. 41 Camry, sang basically the same tune, saying "23 days ago we didn't even have a race team." When a deal he was trying to pull together faltered, Mayfield decided to get some cars and go racing, so "I'm pretty emotional right now, because this is why I came back. It's pretty awesome.

"We've got 12 or 15 guys that are on the payroll -- but I really haven't even paid 'em -- not until we get back from Daytona," Mayfield said. "We've got some checks [now], and let me tell you what's funny. I don't have a clue what Tony [Furr, crew chief] makes -- we haven't even talked about salaries. (Continued)