TOLEDO OH (10-29-09) - When Stuart Kirby surfaced at Chicagoland Speedway in late August, he had not been seen or heard from, racing-wise, in four years.

After a promising career seemed to be on the verge of taking off to the big time, the Bowling Green, Kentucky driver just disappeared.

"I probably got myself in the wrong situations for my racing career to take off like I hoped it would," said 28-year-old Kirby, who lives with his wife and six-month old daughter in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

"Everything I did was on a part-time basis. What I needed to do was get hooked up with someone so I could run a full season somewhere, get all the experience I could, and then take gradual steps."

But that's not the way it happened for Kirby, who first landed on the ARCA RE/MAX Series tour in 2001 with veteran car owner/crew chief Bob Schacht. Despite his part-time tenure, the Kirby-Schacht combo was a threat right off the truck at Daytona where they qualified fourth and finished fifth. Although their appearances were sporadic, they were, nonetheless, always contenders. In just a handful of starts over three years, Kirby posted runner-up finishes at Kansas and Charlotte as well as third place finishes at Michigan and Pocono, and a fourth at Atlanta. They rarely finished out of the top-five. Ironically, Kirby also broke his boss Schacht's longstanding one-lap qualifying record at Pocono. Over 13 career starts total, Kirby and Schacht earned three pole awards - two at Pocono and one at Chicagoland. These guys meant business.

Recognizing Kirby's obvious talent and skill level, Schacht put together a part-time - albeit underfunded - NASCAR Cup program in 2005. In 10 attempts, Kirby qualified for seven events. Not too shabby.

"We were really on a limited budget. We were just trying to make races. That's how we paid for it - we had to go out and make the race to earn enough to get to the next one. It was the year that Cup did the impound deal. They would impound the cars after qualifying, and that's what you raced with. That was tough on us because we had to practice with a qualifying set-up all the time to make the race, so we couldn't concentrate on our race trim. There were a few races where there wasn't an impound and we actually raced really good."

Kirby also got hooked up with Jimmy Spencer's Nationwide program for a bit in 2002, but again, it was only a part-time effort and way underfunded. Part-time and underfunded deals turned out to be not so good for Kirby's career. Subsequently, his career began to crumble.

"I just didn't have the money or the equipment to do what we were trying to do. My dad helped where he could, but I couldn't expect him to spend his life savings on my racing career - he's worked too hard all his life to spend it all on racing. I appreciate what he was able to do. But everything just kind of fell apart and I had to go to work."

So Kirby, who no longer wanted to follow in his father's footsteps in the funeral home business, bought a Brusters Ice Cream franchise and started scooping for a living.

"When I lived in Charlotte, they had them (Brusters) over there and I used to go there a lot. I really liked their product so I started investigating it. I looked into restaurants too, but I decided that I could get into a Brusters franchise more economically. After looking into everything I needed to, I decided it would be a good venture.

"I think there's like 240 (Brusters) stores out there. Right now we're 11th in sales, so we're doing pretty well overall. We've got a great location; we have our labor costs in check; we have a great product; and we offer great customer service. Those four things, I think, are what make us successful.

"I didn't go to college, so I look at this as my college. I've learned the basics of a running a business - sort of conquered this; now I'm ready to move on."

Moving on for Kirby means a couple different things.

"My wife and I have been looking into the restaurant business, so we're considering that. And, I want to get back into racing fulltime.

"I've been working on some things, and I was able to come back this year and put together that one-race deal at Chicagoland with Bill Hendren. We ran decent but we were really, really tight." Kirby finished 11th.

"Main thing is that I'd like to run a full season somewhere, and I think ARCA would be the best choice. Like to run for a championship. If someone out there is looking, I just want people to know that I'm still here, and I definitely still want to race. I'm always out looking for sponsors too, so I'm not opposed to that.

"I know I can still get the job done. But I want a fulltime deal, a fresh start. Start over and run for a championship. For someone who wanted to bring their kid here to race, I could be a heck of a driver coach in a second team car. I still want to race really bad, and I just want people to know that."

For more on Stuart Kirby, visit http://www.stuartkirby.com/, or contact Stuart at kirbyrace@aol.com.