In a sport where sponsorship backing can define a driver’s career path and affect overall performance, former NASCAR driver Josh Wise’s story stands apart. Despite having raced from a young age with promising results, he never had the complete opportunity to deliver that performance on the Cup Series stage.

While his struggle with financial backing continued for most of his career, Wise recently opened up about his performance, exposing the tough career path of an underfunded driver.

Josh Wise reveals how he analyzed every race in his underfunded career

Wise once revealed in an interview that he had wanted to race cars as long as he could remember. His parents got him a go-kart when he was just seven years old, and he took it to competitions, winning many races. His initial career in racing was more or less competitive. Josh Wise won the USAC National Midget Series Championship in 2005 and collected various related accolades.

He finally got the chance to debut in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2009, but this was the time the underfunding caught him in a strain.

“I had no funding my entire life,” he told Katherine Legge on her Throttle Therapy podcast. “You know, and had to just claw my way by performance and relationships really to to have the opportunities I had. And so I was a really good race car driver really until I got to NASCAR, I would agree with anyone on that.”

Josh Wise reminisced about how he tried to improve his performance in NASCAR. Although his early career races were strong, he lost momentum in the Cup Series, which further led to a loss of sponsors and funding.

“I learned to really, you know, really fight for it,” Wise explained. “I really was on track at least, even though I wasn’t necessarily like working out or things like. I didn’t think of it as studying, but I watched races with a razor-sharp mind and analysis. And I wasn’t studying. I loved to race, and so I was making sure I raced well.”

Despite the hard work he put into improving his performance, Wise’s Cup Series career accounted for zero victories. He never gained a full-time sponsorship.

A deeper look into Josh Wise’s struggles in his final NASCAR season

The Motorsports Group (TMG) was a small-budget team that operated in the Cup Series. It was in 2016 that Wise raced full-time for them. However, because the team lacked the finances and experience of other teams on the field, they severely underperformed.

This further led to a lack of full-time sponsorships. In a sport where teams are usually dependent on sponsors for funding, TMG suffered from a lack of the same.

“We’ve had funding – not with TMG so much – we’ve had a few sponsors this season. Stuff in the past has come and gone. I’ve never had that full-time, season-long, high-end sponsor that really brings a team to the next level,” Wise told FrontStretch in 2016.

It is apparent that the team lacked resources and was dependent on used tires for most sessions. Moreover, without a charter, they didn’t have backing from NASCAR, either.

This ended up in a car performing poorly against competitors. Pairing that with Josh Wise’s overall performance that he showcased in the series, there wasn’t much to rely on.

Wise stopped racing after 2016. However, his story continues to showcase the harsh reality that drivers or even teams face in the sport with a lack of sponsorships and funding.