Randy's New Ride

RANDY MOSS doesn't come off as a guy who'd get wide-eyed about meeting anyone, but last Thursday he found himself giddy at the prospect of hanging with Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Patriots' wide receiver—a West Virginia native who describes himself as a country boy—met Junior at Daytona International Speedway. "I felt so excited," Moss said. "Like a kid." He meant it. Moss, 31, has a serious affinity for NASCAR, which became apparent later in the day when he announced he was buying a 50% stake in Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, a team in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Plenty of athletes have gotten into NASCAR in recent years—since the late 1990s, Julius Erving, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and former NFL stars Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach, Tim Brown and Joe Washington all have launched teams. But none of them is still around. Moss insists he'll be different, because unlike most of those jocks, he's starting at the bottom, on the third rung of the NASCAR ladder. "I've done my research," Moss says. "Most of those guys started out at the top, and I am a true believer in the theory that you have to crawl before you walk."

Moss's first order of business was to change the name of the team to Randy Moss Motorsports and change the number of the truck from 46 to 81, his jersey number. (The truck will make its debut on July 19 at Kentucky Speedway, with Willie Allen, the 2007 truck series rookie of the year, behind the wheel.) Now it gets trickier for Moss: He's got to find a sponsor, which isn't easy even when the economy is healthy. Operating a truck team costs about $6 million or $7 million a year, but Moss insists that if a sponsor doesn't come along, he'll dip into his own pockets. Says Moss, "I am ready to keep this thing going myself."

The Pop Culture Grid
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]