Perhaps no other sport has experienced such a rapid surge in popularity and exposure in the United States than stock car racing. NASCAR, the National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing, has been sanctioning races since 1947, but only in the last 10 years has its elite tour, the Winston Cup Series, evolved into the largest and most successful form of auto racing in this country.

Millions attend races, which are run at venues coast-to-coast. The days of stock car racing being simply a regional sport are long gone. Engines roar and tires squeal on speedways in such far-flung locales as Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix, as well as such NASCAR bastions as Atlanta, Charlotte and, of course, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Millions more watch NASCAR on television and have driven up the ratings to the point where they rank second only to the NFL. NASCAR is in the first year of a multiyear, multibillion-dollar contract with major networks Fox, NBC and Turner.

Although the Winston Cup Series is NASCAR's most prominent and visible circuit, it is just one of many operated by the sanctioning body. Hundreds of NASCAR events, featuring car models ranging from coupes to sub-compacts and everything in between, are staged on virtually every weekend of the year.

One of NASCAR's top circuits - in fact, it is superceded only by the Winston Cup Series - is the Busch Series. In many ways the Busch Series, begun in its current form in 1982, is a clone of the Winston Cup Series. The same cars are raced on both tours - the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Ford Taurus, Pontiac Grand Prix and Dodge Intrepid. The only differences are that in the Busch Series, they weigh a little less, produce a bit less horsepower and have a smaller wheelbase.

The Busch Series is akin to Triple-A baseball, although many Winston Cup Series drivers run selected Busch Series races and some of them even have their own teams. Many Busch Series races are companion events to Winston Cup Series events, usually run on a Saturday before the Sunday Winston Cup Series show.

Consider that only 43 drivers start races in each division. Thus, a competitor fortunate enough to race in either the Winston Cup Series or the Busch Series is in elite company, indeed.

That's the company Ashton Lewis Jr. keeps.

Lewis, a 1996 graduate of Old Dominion with a degree in mechanical engineering, raced the full Busch Series schedule for the first time in 2001. He co-owns Lewis Motorsports with his father, Ashton Sr., and his brother, Charlie, who also serves as his crew chief. The team's shops are located in Concord, N.C., just up the road from the glittering Lowe's Motor Speedway (formerly Charlotte Motor Speedway).


PHOTO: GARY KINNER

Lewis is not the lone Old Dominion alumnus in the Busch Series. Another engineering graduate, and a Lewis buddy, is Robert "Bootie" Barker '96, crew chief for the Bill Davis Racing Busch Series team. Tom Stewart '96 works is the lead engineer for MK Racing. And Jeff Oakley '92, executive vice president of Oakley Tank Lines in Prince George County, Va., who has raced in Hooters Pro Cup events, just missed qualifying for his first Busch Series race, the AutoLite Fram 250 at Richmond International Raceway, on Sept. 7.

The Lewis operation was officially formed in September 1999 and made its debut in 2000, running a limited Busch Series schedule. The Lewis family, however, had actually participated in the Busch Series much earlier. Ashton Lewis Sr. fielded a team for veteran driver Elton Sawyer in the mid-1980s.

The Lewis clan hails from Chesapeake. Ashton Lewis Jr. got his start in motorsports racing go-karts at Langley Speedway in Hampton. While it seems he would have been drawn to stock cars - the staple of Southern motorsports - he felt the lure of open-wheel racing.

"I knew racing is what I wanted to do, and when I brought that up with my dad, he said he would support me all the way," Lewis said. "But first he wanted me to get a college degree in engineering."

Now, college degrees are rare in stock car racing. At the time Lewis began chasing his diploma, only one driver in all of NASCAR had a degree - the late Alan Kulwicki, 1992 Winston Cup Series champion.

Lewis started out at Virginia Tech, but in less than a year, by his own admission, he wasn't "dialed in" enough for it.

"I didn't have my mind on it and decided to head to Europe to race the open-wheel cars," he said.

In 1991, he won eight of 16 races in the Eastern Formula Ford Championship and scored 14 wins in 16 starts en route to the Skip Barber Midwest Formula Ford Championship. The next year, he was awarded a Team USA Scholarship and raced in the British Formula Ford Championship, winding up 15th among 176 entries.

Also in 1992, he finished second in the Zerex Saab Pro Series with two wins and 10 top-10 finishes in 12 starts.

A year later, Lewis got behind the wheel of a friend's late model stock car - the vehicle considered the "first step" in NASCAR - and he was hooked.

"I knew then what I wanted to do," he said. "I gave up the idea of racing open-wheel cars."

But there was the matter of that degree.

"I enrolled at Old Dominion because I knew it had a strong engineering program," Lewis said. "While I was at ODU, I really didn't interact much with what was going on there. I was studying and racing. And as hard as I raced, that's as hard as I hit the books." He finished with a 3.9 grade point average, graduating cum laude.

While attending Old Dominion in 1993, Lewis became a regular NASCAR late model stock competitor, racing at Langley and Southampton, two of Virginia's premier short tracks.

He was rookie of the year at Langley. He entered his first Busch Series race in 1993 and competed in one race again in 1994 and 1995.

By the time Lewis graduated from Old Dominion, he was a late model stock terror. His victories and pole positions were achieved in a car he designed and built with his brother, Charlie.

"Engineering contributed to how well we built the car because I knew the geometry needed in the construction," Lewis said. "My engineering background helps most of the time in racing because it helps me understand the dynamics of the car."

Charlie Lewis's skill as a car builder and mechanic landed him a job at the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports organization as a fabricator in the chassis research and development program. Hendrick Motorsports, based in Harrisburg, N.C., is a multicar team which fields Winston Cup Series cars for Jerry Nadeau (like Lewis, a recipient of the Team USA Scholarship), 1984 and 1996 Winston Cup Series champion Terry Labonte, and Jeff Gordon, a three-time Winston Cup Series champion who ranks as one of the most popular and successful drivers in NASCAR history.

After eight Busch Series starts in 1998, Lewis went to work as a team engineer at Akins Motorsports, a mainstay on the Busch Series.

"But I just had to drive," Lewis said. "I knew that's what I really wanted to do."

So Lewis Motorsports was launched in September 1999, uniting Ashton Lewis Sr. and his two sons.

While Ashton Jr. was to be the team's driver, the small, family-run operation demanded he do much more. He builds the shock absorbers, handles all engineering problems, helps with race car setup and schedules the work of the employees.

Lewis competed in 11 Busch Series races in 2000, with his best finish a 17th at Michigan Speedway.

This year, it's been full-bore. As the 2001 campaign went into its final races, Lewis Motorsports had experienced both good and bad. Lewis earned the first top-five finish of his career at Kentucky Speedway in June to go along with qualifying in the top 10 six times up to that point.

But a series of wrecks forced the team to withdraw from the July race at Gateway International near St. Louis.

"We decided to back off and get our cars repaired so we could be ready to run the rest of the season," Lewis said. "We're going to go for it."

While "going for it," Lewis compiled a string of top-20 finishes until he suffered a rare engine failure Sept. 7 at Richmond International Raceway that relegated him to 37th place.

But the team bounced back with a 20th-place finish at the Kansas Speedway Sept. 29 and a fifth place in the Little Trees 300 Oct. 6 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

What Lewis Motorsports has accomplished already in its brief existence is considerable, given that it is a small operation with just 12 full-time employees. It's up against teams armed with much more in both personnel and equipment.

In addition, Lewis Motorsports competed in 2001 without major sponsorship. Sponsors provide teams with the financial fuel they need to exist. Budgets for successful organizations run into the millions.

Without proper sponsorship, Lewis Motorsports could face extinction.

But there's optimism.

"We've been doing some talking with sponsors out there who have worked with other teams and might want to go somewhere else," Lewis said. "We're getting some attention and that's good. We're going to finish out 2001 and see where it all takes us."

The hard work and dedication of the Lewis family has already taken it a long way in the world of NASCAR. With a change in circumstances, the journey will continue.

Steve Waid, a 1970 graduate of Old Dominion, is the vice president for editorial development at Street & Smith's Sports Group, publishers of NASCAR Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Illustrated. He has served as executive editor and publisher of NASCAR Winston Cup Scene and continues to direct operations at NASCAR Winston Cup Illustrated. He also oversees Street & Smith's new book division.

Waid has covered NASCAR since 1972, when he started his newspaper career at the Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin. He spent 10 years as the motor sports writer for the Roanoke Times & World-News before joining NASCAR Winston Cup Scene in 1981.

He has won numerous state sports writing awards and several more from the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) for his coverage, and feature and column writing. In 1999, he was presented the Chairman's American Eagle Award by Street & Smith's for outstanding contributions to the company.

Waid served as president of the NMPA for 12 years and is the co-author, with Tom Higgins, of the biography of NASCAR legendary driver/team owner Junior Johnson, titled "Junior Johnson: Brave in Life."

Waid can been seen weekly as a television analyst on "NASCAR This Morning," which airs from 9-10:30 a.m. (EST) on Fox Sports Net. He and his wife, Margaret '70, live in Concord, N.C. swaid@amcity.com