Young Johnny racecar driver packs up his belongings and moves to NASCarolina after signing a development deal with his dream team.

Shortly thereafter, the economy takes a dip and the sponsorship pool dries up quicker than the ink on his contract.

Johnny racecar driver moves from the limelight to no lights in sight on his promising NASCAR career.

This is a scenario too many young development drivers in NASCAR could face or already have gone through this season as the economy takes a bite out of teams' development budgets.

Josh Wise has been a development driver for Michael Waltrip Racing for more than a year and a half, but the 25-year-old is just now climbing into one of Waltrip's cars.

On Friday night, in Richmond, will be the first time the USAC champion, who drove for Tony Stewart, will pilot the No. 00 Toyota since signing his development contract in 2006.

"I was pretty much left hanging at the beginning of this season, sponsorship for the second Nationwide car was not secured, so I was left testing Cup cars for the first of the year," said Wise, once thought to be NASCAR's next biggest thing who has managed to gain valuable seat time with other operations.

Wise competed in nine Craftsman Truck Series events (career-best, sixth-place finish at Las Vegas) with Darrell Waltrip Motorsports in 2007 and has 14 ARCA starts (career-best, second-place finishes at Pocono, Gateway and DuQuoin) with Eddie Sharp Racing.

Still not behind the wheel in May of this year, Fitz Motorsports called on Wise to run its Nationwide No. 22 Dodge, a direct conflict with MWR's Toyota support.

"I asked Michael and the team and they were OK with it," Wise recalled. "It was necessary for me to get the seat time and hone my skills, they understood and helped support the Fitz program by hiring crew chief Paul Wolfe."

In 12 Nationwide Series starts this season with Fitz, Wise posted a career-best finish of fifth place at O'Reilly Raceway Park.

But, "I'm more excited about this weekend running the MWR No. 00 car than I have been the entire season," said Wise, relieved to see some light shining on his career. (Continued)