At the rear of the Nationwide Series garage, the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship is only a rumor. Back here, teams tinker with their cars under the unforgiving sun, a roof being a luxury reserved for the more well-to-do. This is the home of the shoestring operations, the part-time outfits, the teams without sponsorship that are trying to turn hope and money from their own pockets into something a little more substantial. Everybody wants to make the next week's race. Nobody is really sure they're going to get there until they roll through the gates.

“

It's not always better on the other side, because if they don't like what you're doing, you're out. Here, I can control my own destiny.

”

-- BENNY GORDON

It can be a stressful, hand-wringing existence, full of worries and number-crunching and math that doesn't quite add up. And yet, for drivers who have spent the better part of a career hop-scotching through one minor stock-car league after another, this little corner of NASCAR's often-overshadowed No. 2 national series can feel like the big time.

For a driver who didn't get recognized, who didn't land the dream job with the dream team and instead climbed the career ladder mostly on his own -- in short, a driver like Benny Gordon -- a part-time Nationwide car with his name written above the window opening is the accomplishment of a lifetime.

Gordon earned a little publicity last weekend at Richmond International Raceway by driving a Nationwide car benefitting the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in New York. It was probably the first time many race fans had heard of the 38-year-old, who is running a handful of Nationwide events this season.

I first met Gordon a decade ago, when he was running in the career netherworld that was the old Slim Jim All-Pro circuit, a NASCAR-sanctioned regional touring series that often got lost between the local heroes racing on Saturday nights and the Cup stars competing on Sundays. For an aspiring driver, it was a hard way to make a living. Many reached that level and never went any further.

And yet, there was Gordon last weekend at Richmond, appearing on television and in the media center to ask for donations to the Sept. 11 memorial, coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes in his most recent races at Iowa and Bristol, racing his No. 72 car into the starting field and looking like he belonged. (Continued)