Do you want to know who the ultimate racer is?

It just might be a guy like Bob Jenkins who's probably spent millions -- yep, millions -- attempting to do it right as he tries to gain a foothold in Cup racing. And before you say "so what, racing costs money," you need to know it's the guy's own money that he's burnt through.

Jenkins first appeared in the Cup owners' standings in 2004, when he made a couple unsuccessful attempts in a No. 92 car. He was one of 10 owners in the same 0-fer boat that season. But the difference between Jenkins and the rest -- two-thirds of whom no longer have any discernible involvement in the sport -- is that Jenkins in 2009 made a quantum leap toward achieving his ultimate goal.

The goal is a solid position in the Cup Series garage. And while locking-in the 35th position in the owners' standings last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which came via a 33rd-place finish after rebounding from a crash 101 laps into the 267-lap race, might seem tenuous -- it's actually priceless.

His Front Row Motorsports team did it with less funding, less personnel and less technology than probably anyone who finished ahead of them in the standings. But they certainly didn't lack in any of racing's intangibles, like creativity, resourcefulness and commitment.

"I went out and got some really good people," Jenkins said of his 2009 plan. "This economy has generated a lot of talented people that are out of jobs, so we were able to assemble a team that with funding could compete with most of these guys -- not everybody, like the Hendricks of the world -- but that's been a huge benefit."

And now it can't help but give Jenkins a hefty bargaining chip as he looks ahead to Speedweeks 2010 at Daytona. Not only is he locked-into the sport's Super Bowl -- the Daytona 500 -- his lead team is guaranteed a starting position in the first five races, which was the same thing that got them off to the start that ultimately led to their impressive finish last Sunday.

"No, I honestly didn't think we could be here at the beginning of the year, but from the beginning we concentrated on doing the best we could," driver John Andretti said. "When we were at Daytona, we were still building the team and we didn't even have a race shop. Our goal was to make it to the first Talladega and see where we were and it's all the people here who have made this happen, with reliable, consistent cars." (Continued)