Don Gemmell received an unexpected piece of good news last week. A former worker at Joe Gibbs Racing who had been let go in the employment purge following last season e-mailed to say he had found work elsewhere in the motorsports industry. Gemmell, who earlier this year started a Web site to help his unemployed brethren with issues like insurance, job placement and continuing education, was grateful for the little bit of sunlight in an otherwise very dark time.

dontcheckup.com

Don Gemmell founded the Web site that's become a clearinghouse for resumes and a support group for NASCAR workers who have been laid off.

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"When I get an e-mail like [that] and I'm able to pass it around to everybody else who's contributing, it gives us a shot in the arm," said Gemmell, a former production scheduler at Dale Earnhardt Inc. and one of hundreds of NASCAR team employees laid off when the economy tanked. "But everybody understands there's not a lot out there, not only looking in racing if you wanted to go back to racing. If you want to go be the greeter at Wal-Mart, there's a whole line of people wanting to do that, too. It's a challenging time, and we'll get through it."

They're getting through it, but some of them barely. The Sprint Cup season is in full swing as it visits Lowe's Motor Speedway for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600, and storylines abound -- Mark Martin's victorious resurgence, Stewart-Haas Racing's unexpected strength, Kyle Busch's ability to pile up race wins yet again. It's been months since an estimated 1,200 fabricators, mechanics, engineers and engine builders were let go, most of them victims of teams that couldn't find sponsorship or had to close down entire race programs. The races go on, but for these people the day-to-day struggles do not change. For most, severance packages ran out long ago. Now many are living off the roughly $500 a month they receive in unemployment.

But that won't last forever. Most people get it for 26 weeks, then have to apply for a 26-week extension. There is precedent, Gemmell said, for people receiving multiple extensions in a recession. Eventually, though, it runs out.

"People are hanging on with unemployment, most of them are getting the maximum of $490-something a week, and if they're lucky enough to have a spouse working, that's making ends meet, anyway. We have had several hits of guys getting jobs back in racing, but they're few and far between. There isn't anyplace for all this number to go," said Gemmell, whose Web site, dontcheckup.com, posts resumes of the hundreds of people in the racing industry still looking for work.

"What I'm afraid of is, we had a big blip when it first happened because the numbers were so large in December and January. Everybody was being made aware of it. We gathered the help that was being offered, and we're still getting that help now. But what I'm afraid of is, as peoples' unemployment runs out ... their lives are going to change in silence."

Early in the year, many displaced workers voiced hope that once the season began, teams would realize they needed a little more help and then add people to the payroll. That didn't happen, Gemmell said. If anything, teams are realizing how few people they can get by with, and may be unlikely to expand to pre-recession levels again anytime soon. There are people who have been laid off, found work, and since been laid off again. There are the most recent displaced workers, like the few dozen laid off last month when Earnhardt Ganassi's No. 8 car was suspended due to sponsorship reasons, who stayed on the job a little longer but are now well behind in trying to find something else.

"Those guys are in a real tough place, because they're last out the door," Gemmell said. "Several of those guys spent two days going around to every race shop, and as they were walking up to the front door, they saw people on the inside shaking their heads with a stack of resumes three inches high. Unfortunately, for the industry, it's a challenge. For the country, it's a bigger challenge."

Some people took positions with volunteer start-up teams, where they only get paid if they make the race. Some were promised jobs by friends in the industry, only to have team management completely freeze hiring. Some have given up on racing and are changing careers; Gemmell knows of one former NASCAR team employee, for instance, who is now studying to become a physical therapist. Little by little, more and more people are finding some kind of work, and having that hopeful green "Employed!" label stamped in the space on Gemmell's Web site where their resume once was.

But there are many others still out there, people who only know race cars, people who are still waiting for an opening that may never come. Through dontcheckup.com, some have found insurance options or ways to avoid foreclosing on their homes. But even the Web site, a source of hope to so many, isn't immune from tough times. Gemmell said "vultures" have begun preying on some who have their resumes posted, pulling off personal information and pestering them with marketing calls or spam e-mails. As a result, a few people have asked to have their resumes removed. Gemmell and his crew are working to make the resume part of the site password-protected, with plans to deliver passwords to the human resource departments at all the various race shops.

There are plans for more workshops, like the one on continuing education that was hosted by a local community college earlier this year. There's even been talk of some unemployed workers getting together and fielding a race car, but so far that idea has proven cost-prohibitive. It's easy to forget that Gemmell, whose Web site provides aid and services and solace to so many people, is himself unemployed, making do somehow and fretting about the future along with everybody else.

"I do have a couple of irons in the fire. Nothing that's going to happen overnight," he said. "The Lord is providing, so that's what we're hanging on. Somehow the bills are getting paid and I haven't missed a meal, so it's working."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.