Last November, as most professional race car drivers were easing into offseason kick-back mode, Kenzie Ruston was agonizing. There was a real chance that her dreams of advancing her racing career were in serious trouble. Gone forever-type trouble.
Ruston was entering an offseason with the prospect of having no ride this year, and for someone in her situation -- a 20-something woman with no sponsorship money to dangle -- that can translate into "career over."
But just before Thanksgiving, a lifeline was extended. A lifeline in the form of news that the 23-year-old native of El Reno, Oklahoma, had been named to one of six roster spots on the 2015 NASCAR Drive for Diversity program. NASCAR made the official announcement Monday.
"It's definitely exciting," Ruston said. "I've had to hold it in for quite a while, and that was probably one of the hardest parts about it -- not telling anybody."
Ruston is not the only woman to earn a ride this year. Joining her on the six-member roster is Natalie Decker of Eagle River, Wisconsin. Decker, 17, will drive in the Whelen All-American Series.
Ruston will drive one of Rev Racing's stock cars in the K&N Pro Series East. She is not new to the series, which is one of NASCAR's more prestigious regional feeder circuits. She raced in K&N the past two years as a driver with Ben Kennedy Racing. She did very well in that seat, too, with a runner-up finish at Iowa Speedway last year, the best finish for a woman in series history. She was ninth in points on the season.
But when that ride was not extended, her plans for 2015 were thrown into uncertainty. So Ruston turned her attention to the Drive for Diversity program.
Launched in 2004, D4D annually gives promising young hopefuls invaluable training, experience and mentoring by placing them with professional teams in NASCAR feeder series.
In 2010, the program adopted an "academy style" format. Under that format, drivers identified as worthy by NASCAR are invited to a driving combine. Participants' skills are evaluated, and six are selected for teams competing in the feeder series for a season.
The combine was interesting in itself, Ruston said.
"I've never really had to try out for a race team," she said. "It was a whole new deal. But the whole experience was really cool."
All six of the drivers who made it through will be put in cars fielded by Rev Racing -- the team owned by Max Siegel, the former president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Siegel said on Tuesday that Ruston was good in K&N the last two years but will be better after a year with Rev.
"In our training," he said, "we do physical training, we do on-track testing, they get on simulators, we do sports psychology, we do entire professional development for the total driver training. We think with the equipment and the driver coaches and competition directors, that she will see significant improvement. We're excited about her ability to compete for a championship this year."
As for Decker, she got hooked on racing by way of snowmobiles, a common form of racing in bitter-cold northern Wisconsin.
Opting to heat up her career -- and fingers and toes -- she broke into automobile racing. She has won feature races in limited Late Model and Super Late Model events and was named rookie and sportsman of the year in the ARCA Midwest Truck Tour in 2013.
Decker's cousin Paige also participated in the Drive for Diversity Program, in 2014.
"You have cousins, and really the entire family, involved in racing, which is great," Siegel said. "It [the fact the Decker cousins have both been named to D4D rosters] also spoke volumes to their experience. It's exciting to be involved with family and to have such talented individuals."
Jim Cassidy, NASCAR senior vice president of racing operations, is well aware of Natalie Decker's talents.
"Natalie came to the combine last year; she was really good, and you could see that she was developing both on the track and off the track,'' he said. "Then she came out again this year and her résumé was a little bit different. She was now winning races at a higher level. She was running Super Late Models in Wisconsin, and that's a hotbed and a great source for big NASCAR drivers -- Matt Kenseth [the 2003 Sprint Cup champion] in particular. The region that she was in, the competition she was up against, it's really the highest level. I can't wait to see what she does on track."
Over the past couple of years, the D4D program has begun to yield positive results on the biggest tracks. Two of the graduates of the program -- Kyle Larson and Darrell Wallace Jr. -- have not just advanced to full-time jobs in NASCAR's premier touring series, but have been posting impressive numbers. Larson, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, was named Sprint Cup's top rookie for 2014, while Wallace has won five races over the past two seasons in the Camping World Truck Series. This season, Wallace moves up to the Xfinity Series (the former Nationwide Series), which is just one step below Sprint Cup. He will be driving for Roush Fenway Racing, a team that has won multiple championships.
As of yet, no woman D4D grad has made the big jump.
Siegel said he thinks that time will come.
"For me, it has been a high priority of mine," he said. "... We want to compete at the highest level with all of our teams, but it would certainly be something I would be very proud of to have our first female do it."
That woman just might be included in this year's Drive for Diversity Program.
"I hope that time's coming, and I hope that maybe I'm that breakthrough female racer," Ruston said.