The list of top athletes who have come and gone through NASCAR is a collection of big aspirations with bank accounts that couldn’t keep up. Some never reached the track, others spent millions searching for success before finally calling it quits.
Randy Moss insists he’s different.
New England’s All-Pro receiver became the latest athlete to cross into NASCAR when he announced Thursday he has purchased 50 percent of Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, a fledgling Truck Series team racing this season without sponsorship.
It costs at least $6 million a season to run a successful truck program, and if Moss can’t find funding, he’ll have to reach into his own pocket to pay the bills.
Moss, who wouldn’t reveal the purchase price of his latest venture, said he has the funds to foot the bill and the desire to build a winning program.
“Yeah, I am prepared. I’ll leave it at that,” he said at Daytona International Speedway, where he’ll be attending his first NASCAR race this weekend. “I have been in the league 11 years, so I think I’m good. I am not really saying that I am 100 percent certain that it’s going to work, but at the same time, you’ve got to think positive. I think if you go out there and think in the negative light, bad things will happen.”
So Moss heads into a new sport with lofty aspirations.
He’s renamed the team Randy Moss Motorsports, and changed the truck number from 46 to 81 to reflect his jersey number. The revamped team will make its debut July 19 at Kentucky Speedway with Willie Allen behind the wheel.
Two-time series champion Tony Stewart, who is exploring his own ownership opportunities, believes Moss can be successful.
“A guy’s not going to take an undertaking like this unless he’s going to give it 100 percent,” Stewart said. “A guy like Randy isn’t going to make a commitment like this unless he’s really passionate about this and he wants to be successful.”
And veteran Jeff Burton isn’t sure the financial end of it is going to be that difficult so long as Moss starts small. But a strained economy could make it hard for Moss to find success.
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