CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The sun has just gone down and the lights at Lowe's Motor Speedway have come up, showcasing more than 150 race cars crowded into the infield.
Up in the stands, mixed in with family and fans, will be some of NASCAR's most successful car owners, all of them on the lookout for the next Jeff Gordon or Kurt Busch.
On this night, they have come to watch dozens of children ages 8 to 14 roar around a 1/5-mile oval at 80 mph to more than 100 mph.
And it doesn't matter that many of the kids can't even touch the pedals of a car on a showroom floor because the newest trend among Nextel Cup car owners is to stockpile talent - even if that means signing youngsters still in middle school.
In the control room near the press box, the racetrack's president, Humpy Wheeler, also watches.
"Usually, you start noticing kids when they get to be about 12, when they start running consistently in the top three or four," Wheeler said. "You watch for how smooth they are. You might particularly watch for minorities and women because we haven't found our Tiger Woods or Williams sisters yet."
After the race, Wheeler will take a stroll through the pits to meet young drivers he doesn't know. "I want to see what they look like," he said. "It means a lot today. You've got to have that look. It's unfortunate, but to get a sponsor."
One of the kids Wheeler has been watching for the past six years is Marc Davis, a personable 14-year- old with a winning smile. This spring, the teenager sat on his family's sofa in Mitchellville, in Prince George's County, and happily talked about how his dreams are beginning to come true now that he has signed a contract with Roush Racing.
Roush Racing is owned by Jack Roush, who has five NASCAR Nextel Cup teams - including those of Matt Kenseth and Busch, who have won the past two championships in the series.
"It's not a guarantee for the future," Marc said, "but it means I know the opportunity is there."
Marc, a ninth-grader, is one of two 14-year-olds among four drivers hired for Roush's developmental program this season.
"There is a talent grab for young kids between the ages of 12 and 15," Roush said recently at his Charlotte compound. "Teams can't afford to miss the 14- to 18-year-old group.
"You could be missing a chance to sign the next great driver," Roush said. "We've gone from a situation where if you needed a driver you'd just go get one from another team, to signing the 18- and 20-year-olds because if you don't, the kids with potential are going to be committed to someone else."
In a sport where owners and crew chiefs are looking for every - and any - competitive edge, it is perhaps not surprising that they are trying to land talented drivers at a young age.
"There is a whole underground right now," said Wheeler, who watches kids race every week in the INEX (Inexpensive Racing) Series, Bandolero and Legend cars at his track.
"It's gotten to be just like football and baseball," he said, "but instead of people scouting kids at high school games, they're looking at them at kart and Bandolero races.
"People are looking at kids when they're 10 and 11, and then it gets really serious when they reach 12, 14 and 15, when they're racing against adults - and beating them. Kids move through the ranks, like in baseball - from [Little League] to high school to American Legion."
In auto racing, young people have been moving up through the ranks ever since there were ranks. But until the past 10 years, that meant building a car in your back yard and running at the local track, or, like Terry Labonte, moving from Texas to North Carolina. In either case, you raced and hoped someone associated with the big leagues noticed.
Now, as Wheeler said, everything is organized - and lots of people are looking.
Children ages 5 to 7 begin racing in quarter midgets, little open-wheel cars with 1/2- to 3-horsepower motors, on 1/16- to 1/10-mile tracks. Children 7 to 12 race in go-karts and 30-horsepower Bandoleros. The Bandoleros are more car than kart. They're full-bodied, with complete roll cages. Speeds top out at 80 mph. And they run on bigger tracks, 1/5- to 1/3-mile ovals that are mostly asphalt.
At ages 13 to 15, the good young drivers primarily move into Legend cars. That's the route Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. took. The Legend cars are five-eighths the size of regular cars and have 130-horsepower motors.
Some owners, including Roush and Chip Ganassi, prefer to put their top prospects into more obvious feeder programs, such as the United Auto Racing Association Late Model Touring Series in the Carolinas and Tennessee, where Marc Davis will run this season in a Ford Taurus prepared by Roush Racing.
"The UARA series is a good one," Wheeler said. "There is a mixture of drivers there, kids like young Davis, who I've been watching since he was 8 or 9, and journeymen in their 30s and 40s. It's a grown-up circuit, and Roush and Ganassi like it because the kids they put there get to race somewhere different every week. There are some kids who can't adapt, and they find that out.
"But Davis and the young kid hired by Rick Hendrick, Chase Austin, are the two best young prospects out there."
As Harry Davis, Marc's father, said: "It's like the Olympics or any other major sport or industry. Kids start at a younger age. At 6, Marc was racing BMX motorcycles. Kids who start ice skating or racing at 15 and 16 are behind the curve."
You may have to be 16 to have a driver's license, but you don't need one to compete in closed-course racing.
NASCAR does require a driver to be 18 to compete in its professional series. And several of the developmental series, such as the Legends Series, have weight requirements.
But not everyone follows the familiar path. Gordon - one of the greatest stock car drivers, and the one credited as the young gun who started the youth trend - was spotted while driving open-wheel cars.
"Talent doesn't mean it has to be behind the wheel of a stock car," said Gordon, the four-time champion of NASCAR's premier circuit, the Nextel Cup. "It doesn't matter your background. Me, I made sure I raced in every midget race that was broadcast on TV in 1989 and 1990. I did a lot of other things, but I focused on those, and my phone started to ring."
Now, more people are aware that teams are looking for young prospects. Teams don't yet have scouts spread across the country. No one takes notes on prospects. Instead, they rely on track managers, friends and parents to make calls tipping them off or approaching them at the tracks to tell them about a kid they've seen in Georgia or New Mexico or Alabama.
Young people competing in the Legends Shootout can be seen on Speed Channel, and the younger kids competing in the Bandolero races make it to television when taped races from the previous summer are shown during the winter to help fill the Speed Channel programming menu.
Wheeler said he was getting calls about Reed Sorenson when he was 10. Sorenson is now 19 and competing in the Busch Series for Ganassi this season.
"It's a funny business, in a way," Sorenson said. "You can't really apply for the job. Teams have people in charge of finding talent. They hear about you or see you and then, one day, they just call. That's what happened to me.
"But I think what's happening is good for the sport. It's good to have younger people out here, learning about the cars. If they don't do that, they'll have all 40-year-olds racing."
That's just about what the cup circuit used to have. But, as Sorenson said, "times have changed."
Now, NASCAR's diversity program has also broadened the search. And as NASCAR officials and others are looking for minority and women candidates, they sometimes spot other drivers in competition with talent that might have been overlooked.
The new programs may not exactly mirror baseball's farm systems, but this season seven cup team owners have drivers in their own development and diversity programs or in NASCAR's diversity program.
The owners involved, including Roush, Hendrick and Ganassi, won't put numbers on how much these programs cost. But owner Ray Evernham, while noting his program isn't as extensive as some others, said what he is doing - fielding cars in ARCA and Silver Crown races - is costing "several million dollars."
"I think the day is here when you will have to have minor league programs to stay competitive," Evernham said. "You look at Hendrick and you look at Roush. They were the first guys to do it and make it work successfully, and they're on the top of the heap right now. The day is here, and the rest of us who are just getting into it are a day behind."
But many can't afford the millions it costs. Some, including car owners Robert Yates and the Wood Brothers, still say they can buy talent that has been developed elsewhere if they have winning cars.
"My plan is: Save your money and pay them when you need them," Yates said. "A healthy pocketbook, a big sponsor and a hot car will still get you the driver you want. Right now, we have awesome drivers - a young gun [Elliott Sadler, 30] and a very talented old gun [Dale Jarrett, 48]. Our next driver will come to us because they want to win."
Others, like Richard Childress, are taking still a different route, hiring prospects in their 20s.
"If you notice, none of the drivers I've signed are real young," Childress said. "I want guys with experience. I didn't hire a 16-year-old, and I've caught heat for not doing it. Everyone wants to go that direction, but I don't believe you can build tomorrow solidly on youth.
"And, personally, I don't want to tie up a kid for 10 years for a very small amount of money - which is what a lot of these owners are doing - saying, 'You're mine. You can't do nothing for anyone else.'"
And at least one owner who is stockpiling kids from the age of 10 isn't that happy about it.
"We're just wildly blowing money," Ganassi said. "Is it a crapshoot? You're talking about 10- to 25-year-olds. When you're 18 to 25, the biggest changes in your life occur. A prospect in kindergarten might not be when he's 18. But I told Rick Hendrick I'd sign a 7-year-old.
"It's a group of very competitive people in a very competitive environment. This year, we're going after young drivers. Next year, it might be engineers."
Ganassi became interested in finding the next great young driver when Sterling Marlin fractured a vertebra in his neck in 2002 while near the top of the cup points standings.
"We realized what a huge investment we had loaded up with people," Ganassi said. "When someone gets hurt, a lot of other people have livelihoods at stake."
Gordon, who came to Hendrick 13 years ago as a 20-year-old and won his first cup title at 24, proved to other owners that young drivers in good equipment can do the job.
"Now people are tying the talent up younger and younger," said Hendrick, who has signed Chase Austin, the 15-year-old Wheeler mentioned; Chase is racing a Hendrick car in the ASA Late Model Series this season. "You've got to find out if they have the chemistry you're looking for. You've got to bring them along. Put them in the suites with sponsors. See if they can be a spokesman. Send them to media school. Find out if they have the talent. Can they develop into someone who can represent you at the cup level?
"Three and a half years ago, we took a chance on Jimmie Johnson," who is leading the Nextel Cup points standings, said Hendrick, who also signed Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch, both 21, as 19-year olds. "We don't know who will make it and who won't. But you need to know early on, and it is worth spending the time to find out."
Marc Davis came to Roush's attention through Sam Belnavis, who runs Roush's developmental program, after the teen won two national points titles in INEX Legends racing in 2003. It is the only time in the 10-year history of the INEX/600 Racing that any driver has won two national point series championships in the same year."If you grow up in Maryland or Pennsylvania and you want to race cars, you can't just go do it," said Marc, who gets to keep 50 percent of any prize money he wins. "But you find a way if it's your dream. It means a lot to me to be signed with Roush. It means better equipment and a better team."
Under contract with Roush, Marc is getting seat time in good equipment and the opportunity to perfect his driving skills. But Harry Davis said his son signed with Roush because the program offered more than that.
He is also learning accounting, financing, and how to prepare a spreadsheet and a budget, all things necessary for race team management.
"Marc is getting exposure to the total corporate structure," Harry Davis said. "We felt the Roush people cared about Marc as a person, not just as a possible future driver.
"There are 43 cup drivers, and if you thought about the odds, you wouldn't make the effort. But in 2003, just getting where we are was Marc's dream, and to get here he won two national championships.
"The next dream is the Daytona 500. But if it doesn't happen, there are a lot of other good jobs in racing - marketing, salesperson, team manager, owner."
