BRISTOL, Tenn. -- It's not hard to spot Ray Paprota. Amid a sea of transporters and race cars littering the infield of Bristol Motor Speedway this week as NASCAR brings its full show to town, Paprota's the one cruising around in a wheelchair.

Only, he's not a spectator, race worker or family member of a race car driver, as anyone could be forgiven for guessing. Paprota is a racer.

Never mind that he's a 41-year-old, paraplegic man with three small sponsors and a bank account that's fast approaching empty. Paprota and his 5 Brothers Produce team are slugging it out against outrageous odds in NASCAR's Goody's Dash Series, and they came to Bristol to compete.

In fact, the group -- which greets strangers as if they've known them forever -- seem to have come to Bristol with everything possible stacked against them.

	Ray Paprota, left, thanks his team for their sacrifices that led to his Goody's Series qualifying attempt at Bristol.

Paprota recently became divorced from his wife largely because of his addiction to racing.

His close friend and crew chief, George White, just lost his younger sister to a car accident in Florida last weekend. Paprota told White what anybody would say: Go be with your family.

But that would have meant Paprota would miss Bristol, and so the team rallied together -- White included -- and on Wednesday afternoon were at the wickedly banked half-mile oval in an attempt to qualify for the Pabst Blue Ribbon 150.

This is where it seems fate should have given this mostly self-funded, living-on-the-edge group a break. But it didn't: Paprota failed to qualify, only managing a lap of 102.374 mph.

So let's get this straight: Paprota's legs are paralyzed, he's recently divorced, his crew chief's sister just died in an auto accident, and his team failed to qualify for a race that could have offered a ray of light?

"Kind of takes some of the luster off it, doesn't it?" Paprota says, without a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Qualifying here would have been huge for us."

Paprota was left to watch Wednesday night's Goody's race from his wheelchair, frantically wheeling around the infield attempting to get the best views of a race he could have been in. Should have been in, even.

"It came to me after we didn't qualify," Paprota says, refusing to accept any theories suggesting he deserved to qualify. "You can't expect to show up on race day at this level and qualify. You've got to have seat time at the track. We just don't have the funding for it.

"I can get upset and down about it, but it's seat time you need. The first lap, I wasn't very confident in my car. It felt like I was so close to totalling the car, and I just can't afford to do that. So I had to take it easy."

So much for feeling sorry for himself. Paprota, who became the first paraplegic driver to compete in a NASCAR Touring Series when he raced at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Oct. 25, 2002, says he's happy just to experience Bristol at all, even if it was only a tease.

And the truly remarkable thing is, Paprota says it like he means it.

"I got to soak it up," he says. "It's quite an experience just to come out here."

A quick look inside the cockpit of Paprota's black Mercury compact shows a hand brake and hand throttle jutting off the back of the steering wheel, and a mysterious red button smack in the middle of the shift knob to the right of the wheel.

"That's the clutch," says White, a gleam in his eyes. "Air operates it. It would be easy to set this car up if it was an automatic, but it's a four-speed. That makes it hard."

White, a former crew chief who now converts vehicles and houses for the disabled, has spent many hours trying to give Paprota a fighting chance in a series that challenges those who have use of their legs.

The hours and the money devoted to this operation, Paprota freely admits, "are insane."

The two have a lot of money flowing from out of their pocket. "Oh, God," Paprota says. "I don't know. If we did count it, we'd probably both have been divorced years ago. I'm recently divorced, and racing was a large part of it. It's a crazy amount of time and money that goes into it."

It's a passion Paprota never dreamed of having as a kid growing up in Jersey. Being near Englishtown, he was into drag racing, once telling a group of friends they'd see him one day racing on TV.

But at the age of 21, Paprota's life changed in the blink of an eye. "It was a freak one-car accident," he says. "I was driving, my brother was the passenger. He walked away without a scratch, and I broke my back."

Paprota smiles. He's in his trailer, having failed to qualify for what well could be the last Goody's Series race at Bristol (NASCAR has dropped the series for 2004), and he doesn't miss for a second life's little oddities.

"I wouldn't even be here racing today if it wasn't for the accident," he says. "I'd have been a 9-to-5, working-class slob in New Jersey, like all the rest of the people. But I came to Birmingham to train for the '96 Paralympic Games, I was playing basketball. I hurt my shoulder and couldn't play, so then I got into racing."

Now, Paprota is making NASCAR history. He embraces the pioneering aspect of his journey, on and off the track. He's started a program called "Little Slicks" for disabled children, giving them a chance to race modified go-karts.

He recently filmed an episode for the Discovery Channel's Monster Garages series, where he helped design and convert a four-dour Mercedes-Benz SUV so the disabled can drive it.

"I had a blast," he says. "And I was proud of the final product. They came to me because they know I have some experience with this."

Paprota, who will attempt to qualify for the final Goody's race at Atlanta in October, refuses to give up on dreams that many simply don't understand.

"I think people question why I'd do something like this," he says. "Same reason anyone would do it. It's competitive spirit. You can't turn that off because you're in a wheelchair."

Paprota gathered his team together Wednesday night in their humid trailer. He leaned forward in his wheelchair, his crew members in a semi-circle around him, and thanked them all for coming to Bristol and rolling the dice with him. Then the team prayed, thanking God for the opportunity.

White will head to Tampa, Fla., for his sister's funeral on Friday. Paprota will keep searching for sponsors that continue to elude him. Life goes on.

To see the smiles on each man's face, it was difficult to tell that anything was wrong.

"Hey, every trailer here has a story," Paprota says. "Once you're a racer, you know what each guy's endured to be here. I'm not going to quit for anything unless I run completely out of funds.

"The next guy that comes along in a chair, I don't want him looking back and saying I screwed it up for him. I couldn't live with myself if I screwed it up for the next guy."

Paprota motions outside, where cars roar around the Bristol track.

"Every guy's dream out here is the pinnacle, Winston Cup," he says, then waves his hand back inside his trailer. "Odds are terribly stacked against us. We may not get to (Craftsman) Trucks, we may not get to Busch. But hopefully we make it easier for the next guy who comes along in a chair."

Justin Hagey is an RPM editor for ESPN.com.