Joey Gase of Jimmy Means Racing revels in special day at Talladega
Fifth-place finishes don't normally create much of a stir, yet it was hard to miss the scoreboard salute and the congratulations from across the country that came after the fact.
For Joey Gase, for Jimmy Means Racing and for finishing fifth.
When was the last time a NASCAR driver finishing fifth generated any substantial interest?
Was it earlier this season when Kurt Busch finished fifth at Phoenix, his indefinite suspension lifted after missing the season's first three races?
Or was it in the season-ending race of 2009 at Homestead, when Jimmie Johnson finished fifth to become the first driver to win four consecutive championships?
It's just not a spot that often gets noticed.
Saturday at Talladega, however, it was hard to miss.
Long after the race had ended, the scoring pylon continued to show one number in one position and nothing else -- the No. 52 of Gase and Means.
The others, first through fourth and sixth through 10th, were gone. Fifth was there, though, and it was there for quite a while.
Gase, 22, earned his first career top-five in Saturday’s Winn Dixie 300 at Talladega Superspeedway, and it came in his 85th start in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. His best previous finish of 11th came at the same track last year. Beyond those two results, he had just one other finish inside the top 20.
He's young and eager, willing to do whatever is necessary as long as the end result is a race car, a race track and himself behind the wheel.
In addition to his XFINITY Series effort, he has five career Sprint Cup starts.
One of the first things he admitted when speaking to the media following the Talladega finish was that he doesn't have a public relations representative.
Granted, given the cost of racing and the limited resources facing some teams, a public relations person isn't high on the list of necessities. Especially in a series that isn't Sprint Cup.
Tires? Everybody's gotta have tires. Then there are entry fees and engines, travel and "hey, this piece is flat worn out, we gotta find us a used one somewhere," reasons for what a team has and what it does not.
Asked afterward to describe his team, Gase called the group "small but mighty."
There are perhaps five full-time employees, and maybe three that travel to the track each week. The others are volunteers that come from a nationwide network of friends Means has developed through the years.
"These last couple of weeks, we've actually been able to get four over-the-wall guys (to pit the car), that's all they do," Gase said. "That's actually their job. And that's been pretty big for us.
"It's just crazy. We're just so small."
Means is a former racer and an old school, hard-knocks kind of owner. He finished 11th in NASCAR's Sprint Cup points standings in '82. He's been around. His XFINITY Series team has been competing since '01, but until Saturday had never scored a top five.
His kid, Brad Means, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. used to pal around in the infield. Earnhardt, Sunday's winner in the Sprint Cup race, spoke at length about those times.
It's been reported that at least one set of tires on Gase's car Saturday were used Goodyear's from Earnhardt's own No. 88 Cup team.
A Cedar Rapids native, Gase will be a bit closer to home these next two weeks -- he'll attempt to qualify for Saturday's Sprint Cup race with Go Fas Racing at Kansas Speedway, then head to Iowa Speedway the following week for his next XFINITY Series start with Means and Co.
It will be his sixth Sprint Cup start. Both Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series efforts have carried branding from Donate Life this year, a non-profit organization whose focus is organ, eye and tissue donation.
It's a cause near and dear for Gase -- his mother, Mary Jo, passed away in 2011 and Gase made the decision to donate her organs. He's met those whose lives were enriched, or extended, thanks to that decision.
He visits hospitals on his own and speaks to groups about organ donation. Few advocates for any cause are as authentic, as eager.
When he's not racing, his car duties are the previously mentioned public relations, seeking out sponsors and handling the graphics that go on the car each week. Anyone that walks in the shop, he said, "we put them to work.
"Basically no one on our team has just one job. Everyone does a little bit of everything."
Saturday "everything" paid off with a top-five finish.
For most folks, fifth is quickly forgotten. For Gase and Means and the folks that work for the joy of working, maybe it's a beginning.