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Kevin you are exactly right on everything you've said. The little guy is being pushed out and is has happened in just the last few years. In my opinion sprint car racing is heading now were the Indy 500 has went the last 25years. In the late 70's and early eighties it was common place for Grant King, A.J. Watson and many others to take a 4 or 5 year old Indy car, haul it to the speedway on an open trailer and make the 500. As the technology continued to evolve, with skyrocketing costs the 75-95 cars that would show up for the 500 has now dropped to 35-40, with several of them being backups that don't even try to make the race. Sprint car racing is heading down this path. A path where someone with desire and technical ability willing to use and work with equipment not necessarily level witht he top teams, doesn't have a place any longer. As Kevin said there are many drivers at all levels of racing capable of racing in the big leagues. In the mid eighties I worked with a low budget Indy car team that Ken Schrader drove for at the speedway, passing his rookie test and being at a speed to make the race in an older car before it was wrecked in practice. Kenny said something then that I have always remembered "There's a lot of guys out there across the country that have the ability to drive these cars or Nascar that will never get the chance." Unfortunately we may be saying the same thing about sprint car racing in not to distant years to come.
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