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It's Friday night at Lakeside Speedway. Aaron Daniel, his girlfriend, his stepdad and a couple of friends from high school are standing around on the grassy bank of the reserved tailgating area, just behind Turn 1. The parking lot is filled with pickup trucks bearing both NASCAR and Confederate flag stickers.

Light from uncovered bulbs atop wooden poles reflects off the racetrack mud. From this distance, the race cars circling the far turn look like Matchbox toys on a rain-soaked playground, turning at odd angles, pushed by an invisible hand.

A cluster of dinged cars pulls around Turn 4, barreling down the straightaway toward Daniel. Sliding across the mud, turning practically perpendicular to the track, the cars blast chunks of dirt through two sets of mesh fire fencing. Daniel smiles and tilts a bottle of Bud Light to his lips.

In the mid-'80s, Lakeside Speedway was booted from its location near 97th Street and Leavenworth Road to make way for the Woodlands. The short, half-mile speedway moved roughly 3 miles northwest, toward further obscurity on Kansas Highway 5 along the Union Pacific rail line. Daniel has raced this track only a handful of times, but it's still familiar -- the muddy sandbox corners, the demolition bang of racers along the backstretch, the rowdy cheering of the crowd.

Daniel knows most of the top racers on the local circuit. He used to race with some of them. One was his next door neighbor from childhood -- John O'Neal Jr. remains his best friend. The occasional fan still wears a faded Aaron Daniel T-shirt. In the pits after the races, women recognize him, ask him to sign their daughters' plastic checkered flags.

"This is where I'm from," Daniel says. "Where racers race to race. They'll race for a six-pack of beer."

Before Daniel jumped from the local circuit and small NASCAR touring races to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series -- the multimillion-dollar tier just below the Busch Grand National and Winston Cup series -- he was a local legend. But in 2001, he agreed to drive the No. 11 race truck full time for the Kansas City-based, family-run racing company Team Chick Motorsports. At 34, Daniel saw the opportunity as his last chance to break into racing's upper ranks. Team Chick Motorsports owner Steve Chick saw Daniel as the driver who could give his upstart company some credibility, maybe even a shot at winning.

"What happened in Kansas?" a friend asks Daniel, referring to what was supposed to have been his most important race of the summer, back on Fourth of July weekend at the Kansas Speedway. Car trouble had kept Daniel from qualifying.

"I wish I could forget."

"You done racing for the season?"

"Maybe Texas."

The next weekend, Daniel will join another truck team for the American Racing Wheels 200, a $52,000-purse race in California, taking advantage of the fact that a team owner out there couldn't find a driver qualified to run that 2-mile track. In racing terms, Daniel will be there to start-and-park: He will qualify for the race, run a few laps, then bow out, making some money without putting too much wear and tear on the car. After all, in the top tier of NASCAR, even the last-place finishers earn prize money. Financially, there's little difference between a twentieth-place finish and a thirtieth-place finish.

Still, it's the type of move Steve Chick frowns upon. Start-and-park drivers are sellouts.

But the weekend's all-expenses-paid trip to the Golden State will earn Daniel enough for a house payment. He has three daughters; his live-in girlfriend has three kids of her own. His budget is stretched to the limit. If he wanted to, Daniel could be renting himself to any number of teams. He's qualified to compete in all NASCAR truck races, including Daytona in February.

At Lakeside, Daniel and his friends place bets on the numbered cars. By the last race, booze has upped their competitive spirits. Everyone within earshot is in; the ante is five bucks a car. The race will be a 20-lap free-for-all. When the white flag drops, cars accelerate, raising billows of white dust from the just-chalked track. The points leader jumps ahead and pulls away from the pack; he's won most of his races this season, Daniel says.

Entering the last turn, the points leader is ahead. Then the car in front of him stalls, blows its engine and spins sideways. Without time to avoid each other, the cars T-bone. The points leader is out of the race.

The crowd falls silent. Daniel yells and pumps his fist. Amid the smoke and commotion, his car came out of nowhere.

"Pay me," he says. Grudgingly, his friends stack green bills across his palm.

It's the first money Daniel has made racing all year. Auto racing might be based on a simple law of mechanics -- the fastest car wins -- but the opening of the Kansas Speedway two years ago taught dreamers like Daniel and Chick that what really fuels the sport is money.

On October 11, Daniel hopes to drive in the Silverado 350, a race paying a $59,380 purse at the Texas Motor Speedway. A good finish might help bankroll another few races. A bad finish would probably end his already rough season.