FONTANA, Calif. -- As Saturday's final practice for this Sunday's Auto Club 500 stretched toward its conclusion, Dave Blaney stretched out on the couch in his team's hauler.

Blaney's work for the weekend essentially was done long before Sunday's green flag was set to drop. Remarkably, Blaney qualified fifth in the No. 66 Toyota that his Prism Motorsports team plans to start and park Sunday.

With only three members working for his team this weekend, Blaney really had no choice. He knew Friday qualifying would be his "race."

“

We'll race once in a while this season when we get enough money put together and a little bit of sponsorship.

”

-- DAVE BLANEY

"That's our weekend," Blaney said, who will make his 334th career Cup start Sunday. "Yeah, it's different. But I went through it all of last year, too. Friday's are fun. They're competitive and there is a lot on the line.

"And then it's over. Even if you make it, your weekend is over. It's kind of hard to deal with -- but that's where we are at this point in time."

For Prism Motorsports, which also fields the No. 55 Toyota driven by Michael McDowell that will start in the 30th position Sunday, it's all about trying to keep the No. 66 out in front of potential sponsors as much as possible.

Crew chief Bill Henderson said it costs in the ballpark of $60,000 to make the trip to the West Coast for his team to try to make a Cup race. Last place in this race last year paid $82,690.

"It's not really about the bottom line for us," Henderson said. "It's about trying to keep the eyes of sponsors on us. All we can do is try to keep doing what we did here this weekend, and hope someone with some money to spend in our sport will notice.

"The top teams might be looking for $15 million to run a season. We can do it for more like $5 million."

Right now they're trying to do it for a whole lot less. Blaney failed to qualify for the season-opening Daytona 500 -- and when crew member Scott Creque had to miss that race and this weekend after his wife had a baby, the team with very little suddenly had to do with even less.

Rick Liptrat not only drives the hauler to events, but also picks up the groceries for the weekend, makes the coffee every morning, helps with tires (more in Creque's absence than usual), works as a fabricator and mechanic, and in general is a jack of all trades. In his spare time, he tries to make a little cash by working as a gas man on pit crews who need help in the Nationwide and Truck series.

"I don't sleep much. And when I do it's usually for less than six hours," he said, smiling nonetheless.

Prior to taking his current job, Liptrat served as truck driver and in the shop for the No. 48 team of Hendrick Motorsports for two years before "getting burnt out" and taking a year off. The rest of the No. 66 crew includes Henderson and car chief Dan Heiser. That's it.

"The last two races, we've been one man down," Liptrat said. "It's pretty interesting because we all split it up 25 percent -- and when you remove one guy from the equation, that really increases the workload. Now we gotta pick that other 25 percent back up." (Continued)