Life still a struggle for 'Black Monday' victims (cont'd)

But the vast majority of these displaced workers are still locked in a day-to-day struggle that's clearly wearying. To call it hopeless may be unfair; these are proud people who understand that their industry is performance-driven and inherently unstable, and many of them have lost jobs before. The difference is that before, there was always another job to go to. They were always just a telephone call away from more work. That's no longer the case, and the reality is sobering. The longer they're unemployed, the more resigned some become. Gemmell can see it. You can almost hear it in his voice.

"Because of what I started with my intentions, I get these phone calls. Guys are just calling to listen to somebody to say, 'Tell me something good.' It gets harder and harder to inspire or pump up or give somebody the good spin they're looking for," he said. "Some of them quit calling because there's just not much more I can say. And some of them made the switch quicker than others, but a lot of them are coming to the point where they're saying, 'This is not an option anymore. Going back to this industry is not an option anymore. I have to do something.'

"I'm not a racer, but a significant number of the people on that Web site, you could put 'racer' next to them, because that's what they do. That's what they've lived their lives for. And they're coming to the realization that they're not a racer anymore, that they've got to go do something else."

Others forge ahead through desperate times. There was an opening for a crew chief's position in California, but it offered no moving costs. The shop of Kyle Busch's new Camping World Truck Series team has a mailbox out front just for resumes. Gemmell tells a story of a displaced worker who finally wrangled an interview with someone he had worked with and known for years. But in this environment, nothing is automatic -- his former teammate may have known everything about him, but still requested a resume. Some find scraps of work on the fringes of the industry, or find something that pays them under the table and will do anything to hold onto it.

"A guy I talked to ... his words were, 'I've taken the attitude of, I'm going to go to work, I'm going to do whatever they ask me, I'm going to do it with a good attitude, and I'm going to go home and I'm not going to care about it,'" Gemmell recalled. "But the point was later made that that approach just sucks the lifeblood out of what made this sport what it is, the people behind the scenes putting the hours in without being paid, and putting all the hours in at the track. When the pendulum swings, the majority of the people are just taking that attitude. Not that they're going to do less of a job. Not that they're less of a person. But their whole approach to what their life is, is different."

Any sort of rebound has yet to occur. It may never happen. While a few people have found work, it hasn't been in numbers large enough to make a difference. Men with 15, 20, 25 years of experience in race shops are finding themselves priced out of the business. Big teams are feeling the pinch because some sponsors aren't renewing at the financial levels they once paid. You would hope that, a year after Black Monday, things would be better. If anything, the opposite has occurred. Being unemployed was bad enough. Now they feel forgotten. "This has been a continuing slide down the hill," Gemmell said.

He knows this first-hand. Gemmell's role as a motivator and an information source to many of his brethren belies the fact that he was one of those purged in the great contraction following the 2008 season, and that he's suffering just like everybody else. And then late last year, his wife, who also worked in the industry, lost her job. Like most in his situation, he has no choice but to come to grips with his fate and try somehow to move forward.

"This is all being planned out by somebody bigger than us," he said. "We're just keeping our ears and eyes open for whatever doors may open, and continuing to do some good while we're in this period. We're not sitting around doing nothing."