NASCAR: Blue collar driver Ellis makes Richmond Cup field

Sprint Cup rookie Ryan Ellis became inspirational story of the weekend on Friday when he narrowly made the field for the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Attempting his first start of 2016 in a part-time No. 93 for BK Racing, Ellis had entered without one of the 36 charters that would have guaranteed him a starting spot. With more than 40 cars on the entry list for the first time since Daytona, not everyone would take the green flag Sunday.

Related Stories

This challenge was further complicated by the rain that started to fall near the Virginia short track on Friday morning. If not able to qualify, the starting lineup would be set by practice speeds. Under the worst-case scenario, if all track activity was washed out, he would be sent home based on his number of attempts.

"Literally, that would have been the worst day of my life," Ellis told RACER on Saturday. "It would have been horrible. It's not even necessarily the racing side of it when you get to this level, but rather the sponsorship stuff.

"We have 75 to 100 people coming out from ScienceLogic. This is their home race and this is my home race. I have friends coming out, so I would have had 100 people coming to the race that would have been depressed or sad and I would have had it on my shoulders."

Fortunately for Ellis, qualifying indeed was rained out but only after he had outpaced Cole Whitt by just .098 in practice to secure what turned out to be the final spot on the grid – ninety-eight thousandths of a second.

"We actually ended up going out behind Cole in every single practice run, not on purpose because that probably wouldn't be ideal, but we were watching their times pretty closely," said Ellis (left). "I know we were trying to get further up the boards so we didn't have to worry about (Whitt), but we were just fighting a few problems on our car.

"Overall it was driving pretty good so I think I could have qualified in but it was nice to not have to worry about it."

Making the race was a significant accomplishment for Ellis because he's hoping to entice his sponsors to sign up for additional starts. He is currently signed for "multiple races" but continued success could lead to more opportunities.

"This was huge," Ellis said. "ScienceLogic is considering doing more and we could have a great opportunity next year, so letting them down at our first race with a new team would have been really disappointing. This is only their second venture in NASCAR, so if they had one good experience and one bad experience they might not come back next year.

"But, to have the weight off my shoulders feels great."

Ellis finished 40th in the fall at Phoenix in his only Sprint Cup start.