One bad turn �� resembles another. Casey Atwood and Jimmy Spencer, at vastly different points in their career, couldn't answer opportunity's knock - NASCAR

Two years ago, Casey Atwood was riding the crest of a Winston Cup wave, a 20-year-old kid trying to stay atop a mini-tsunami notorious for swallowing everything in its path. As the next Boy Wonder, the next NASCAR It Boy, plucked from the madding crowd by the inestimable Ray Evernham, great things were expected of mighty Casey. It was portrayed as the perfect marriage of man and machine.

Evernham made his name as crew chief for the original Boy Wonder, Jeff Gordon, shepherding him to 47 Winston Cup wins and three series titles in seven years. But Evernham and Gordon spun magic; Evernham and Atwood spun their wheels. Together the two were left to wonder as that wave battered the shell-shocked kid's dreams and swept him straight out to sea.

Atwood's dramatic rise and precipitous fall--he was bounced from the No. 19 car Evernham owns to the Ultra Motorsports No. 7 in 2002, and he has no ride this season--is remarkable, even by NASCAR's larger-than-life standards. But like all good dramas, it's not entirely original. Sure, his story has the makings of a Shakespearian epic, but is it really so far removed from, say, Jimmy Spencer's?

Spencer, 46, is more than twice Atwood's age, and he did his time in NASCAR's Land of the Underfunded Team. Haas-Carter Motorsports wasn't small-time, per se, but neither was the outfit awash in money. In seven years with the team, Spencer managed no wins and 13 top fives. So, when big-time Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates came calling for 2002, it was portrayed as the perfect marriage of man and machine.

But Spencer's magic carpet ride to the tonier neighborhoods of NASCAR ended as abruptly as Atwood's had the year before. After Spencer failed to qualify for the season-opening Daytona 500 and followed that embarrassment with two top fives and six top 10s in 34 races, hardly the success the Ganassi organization hoped for, he was fired with two races remaining in the season.

The tales are remarkably similar, in no small part because both have ended with mutual recriminations, narrowed eyes and closed mouths. And lawyers. Ask virtually any member of either camp to shed some light on where it all went so disastrously wrong, and the answer is the same: Love to help you out, but I can't say a thing; it's with the lawyers. In early February, Spencer filed a breach-of-contract suit against Ganassi and accused him of sabotaging his career; Atwood and Evernham Motorsports have yet to come to a contractual settlement.

The rift between Spencer and Ganassi is such that no one at Ganassi Racing except Chip Ganassi will say word one, and the man himself says little more. Well, two words to be exact.

"No comment," Ganassi said through a team spokesman when asked to discuss Spencer's firing.

And Atwood? Released from the No. 7 team late last season, he bides his time until something comes along. "Oh, yeah, people have been sympathetic," says his father, Terry Atwood, "but that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee." In the mean time, Atwood, like Spencer, has been advised by counsel not to say anything.

Like his counterpart Ganassi, Evernham is extremely guarded on the subject of his former driver. However, through a spokesman, he did issue a brief statement. "I've said this all along: I truly care about Casey, and that goes beyond what happens at the racetrack," it reads. "However, our philosophies when it came to racing were just too different for us to continue our relationship. There is nothing I want more than to see him succeed."

Yes, the stories are similar, but Atwood's seems the more depressing--Spencer has been around the block a time or two and knows the drill, but Atwood?

He's still a kid who won't even turn 23 until August. And while Atwood sits at home in Tennessee and refuses to answer a reporter's calls, at least Spencer has a ride--coincidentally in the No. 7 that Atwood drove last year. Spencer's best years and any chance of landing another high-profile seat likely are behind him, but at least he's out there, letting his performance speak for him.

Atwood? While not quite out of sight, out of mind, he is the unenviable subject of those incessant garage whispers.

"Casey knows nothing good can crone out of (talking)" Terry Atwood says, "so he keeps his mouth shut. And then what happens is, this guy says, `It ain't my fault; that guy says, `It ain't my fault,' and Casey won't open his mouth, so then it becomes `It's all Casey's fault.'"

If those annoying whispers also have dogged Spencer since last year, they're easier to dismiss as the usual by-product of what is a very insular world. And, given his lack of performance in the No. 41, there's ample justification for his dismissal. But Atwood is hamstrung by his youth and a very reserved nature, ingredients that don't give him much ammunition with which to fight back.

"I think Casey has a lot of talent to drive a car," Sterling Marlin says, "but he had an opportunity to build, and if I was a kid, 20 years old, and had a chance to drive for Ray Evernham, you would've had to run me out of the shop. I think Casey tried to stay in Tennessee and just show up on the weekends and drive the car. You've got to get with the crew guys, intermingle with them....

"Now, nothing against Casey. He probably didn't know (any different) at 20 years old, but this is a business, so if the man you drive for says move here, then you move."

Atwood didn't move. He also didn't set the world on fire in 2001 or '02. "The kid just wasn't getting the job done," says Jim Smith, owner of the No. 7 in partnership with Evernham. "It's just the same as it is with a basketball coach who isn't getting it done--you make a change."

Atwood's replacement in the No. 19, Jeremy Mayfield, and Spencer in the No. 7 haven't done much better.

Former Winston Cup and current Craftsman Truck series driver Bobby Hamilton is a friend of the Atwood family. "With all fairness to Ray," Hamilton says, "maybe Ray thought he should be able to plug him in and win as many races as Jeff did. Well, Bill Elliott can't win as many races in Ray's stuff as Jeff Gordon did."

Moreover, Atwood seemed to be making progress toward the end of 2001: He won the pole at Phoenix and finished a career-best third at Homestead. Those last-gasp performances weren't enough to save his seat in the No. 19. "It's not a 10-race deal at the end of the year," Marlin says. "You've got to put out 100 percent from Race 1 to Race 36."

Wittingly or not, Marlin touched on another of those garage whispers: Atwood somehow is uncommitted to the sport and his career.

"As far as his work ethic, I never had a problem with it," says Buddy Barnes, crew chief on Atwood's car for six races in 2002. "He gave good information, and like I said, we were trying to work with our backs against the wall.... Certainly, if the opportunity ever comes back around, I'd take him."

Hamilton says: "A lot of people have a different work ethic. Casey Atwood compared to Bobby Hamilton, no, he's not 10 percent. But I would say that Casey Atwood has worked every bit as hard as Jamie McMurray has. Put Casey in that car in Charlotte (where McMurray, driving Marlin's car, won in his second Cup race), he would have won going away, and everything would be different."

But life and dramas being what they are, things aren't different, and at the end of the day, Spencer and Atwood find themselves in uncomfortable positions. At this stage, it might be impossible to figure out where it all went south. Perhaps the answer lies in an annoying sports buzz word: chemistry.

"I think the deal is, some personalities clashed," Martin says of Spencer, his former teammate at Ganassi. "It just didn't work out. Chemistry wasn't there like it needed to be."

Barnes says of Atwood: "Things just didn't work out. It just might not have been the right situation for him. People need to realize that this business is so much about chemistry.... It's a sad situation."

Sad might be too strong of a word, but unfortunate isn't. Spencer landed on his feet. Atwood still is trying to find his. He does, however, still have believers.

"Casey, at his age, he's young enough that he can (right himself)," Hamilton says. "He needs a good Busch car to drive or even a multicar team to test with. Once someone works with him again, they'll think, `Holy crap. That kid is sharp.'"

Parental bias showing, Terry Atwood offers this assessment: "He'll find a ride, he'll win races, and he will be a champion."

Now, for the chance to prove it.

Stephen Thomas is a freelance writer based in Millburn, N.J.

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