Trevor Bayne is on the outside looking in this NASCAR season.
Trevor Bayne had the world at his feet. Whatever he wanted was within reach. Whatever he dreamed came true. His future seemed unlimited. Despite being almost too young to shave, there he stood, hoisting the Harley Earl Trophy in victory lane at Daytona International Speedway.
This was February 2011 at the self-proclaimed World Center of Racing. Just 20 at the time—he looked like a middle-school trombone player—the Knoxville, Tennessee, wunderkind had just won the Daytona 500 in his second—second!—career Cup Series start. Nobody younger had ever won NASCAR’s grandest prize, and nobody had won it so early in his career.
Winning the 500 for Wood Brothers Racing was the stuff dreams are made of. Well, maybe not always.
Today, Bayne is 8 years older and 100 years wiser, unemployed and content. He and his wife are building a new home in the Knoxville area, reviving a rundown farm and opening a neighborhood coffee shop. Most important to him, he’s also spreading his Christian message that while professional success is nice, it’s nothing compared to God’s plan.
Trevor Bayne was on top of the NASCAR world at the 2011 Daytona 500.
“Despite everything now, I’m so thankful for everything that’s happened,” he said before addressing a high school group in Virginia. “People always say how lucky I am because they’ve never had the opportunities I’ve had. Winning Daytona was awesome, and I’m thankful because it’s given me a bigger platform to talk about my faith. But my heart hurts for people who think they’ll find real happiness with anything this world has to offer. For me, winning the 500 wasn’t the biggest thing in my life.”
If Bayne is bitter about Roush-Fenway Racing firing him last fall, it doesn’t show. He’s upbeat and optimistic, convinced that whatever the future holds is the way God wants it. He can live with that; in fact, he’s comfortable never racing again if that’s God’s plan. There have been job inquiries, but all have come with a deal-breaking qualifier.
“I get calls every now and then,” said Bayne, whose only Cup Series victory in 187 starts is the 500. “Somebody wants to start a team or thinks he has an investor who wants to start a team. Or maybe it’s a credible team already racing that says, ‘We’d really love to have you.’ But it always comes down to, ‘Do you have any sponsors or partners you can bring?’ And that’s where the conversation ends. It’s frustrating because I know I could do well and win, but the business model has changed so much. You need to bring money, and it’s tough if you don’t have a family with millions of dollars or a huge sponsor.”
Bayne’s once-promising career went sideways last season, his fourth with RFR after parts of five mediocre seasons with the Wood brothers. After watching his No. 6 Ford team struggle through the first 11 races—in truth, Bayne always struggled with RFR—team owner Jack Roush hired Matt Kenseth to share the ride the rest of the season. The 2003 champ didn’t do much better, mostly starting and finishing in the 20s, about where Bayne had been. The team has been slightly better this year with Ryan Newman: starting around 18th and finishing around 15th.
“I could see the handwriting on the wall,” Bayne said of Kenseth’s arrival last spring for 15 of the last 25 races. “I sort of knew … but Matt didn’t do much better than I did, and that gave me confidence since a championship-level driver couldn’t get much more out of the car than I could. I left that team knowing I’d worked my butt off every weekend and had given them the very best I had.”
Some of Bayne’s employment issue might be health-related. He missed five races with the Woods in 2011 after suffering nausea, fatigue, double vision and numbness from what was thought to be a tick bite. Three years later, before the 2014 season with Roush-Fenway, he revealed he had multiple sclerosis. The disease hasn’t manifested itself and NASCAR’s doctors have cleared him during every preseason exam. Still, some owners might be concerned.
“I don’t know what that was all about,” Bayne said of the MS diagnosis. “Maybe I was misdiagnosed or maybe God healed me. I just know that it’s had no effect on me. I train hard every day, trying to be the best driver I can be. Other than Jimmie Johnson (who had just run the Boston Marathon), I’ll put myself up against anybody when it comes to health and conditioning. I could go to Bristol right now and run 500 hard laps. I’d hate to think that my health is the reason I don’t have a ride.”
Through it all, Bayne’s message remains firm: “There’s so much more to life than winning the Daytona 500 and getting that hunk of metal,” he said. “At the end of the day, chasing trophies and winning races is fleeting. Winning the 500 might be the greatest thing in the world for some people, but not for me.”
Source: Read Full Article