Dennis Prunty doesn’t have a sponsor. He doesn’t have a hauler with his name on the side. What he does have is a 2007 Rayburn Modified chassis with nearly 150,000 laps on it, a burning desire to compete, and a $5,000 racing fund scraped together from his own pocket for a one-way trip to Pensacola, Florida.

Prunty, 38, of Knowles, Wisconsin, is heading to the 43rd annual Snowball Derby at 5 Flags Speedway on December 3–4, 2010. The Snowball Derby is the most prestigious short-track race in North America—a 300-lap event on a 1/4-mile asphalt oval that draws the best Super Late Model talent from across the country. It is, in every sense, the Super Bowl of short-track racing.

“I’ve wanted to run the Snowball Derby my entire life,” Prunty said from his shop outside Knowles, population 52. “When I was a kid watching racing on TV, that was always the one race I thought about. It’s on every short-track racer’s bucket list. This year, I’m finally doing it.”

Prunty is best known on the Wisconsin short-track scene as a regular at Slinger Speedway, the high-banked 1/4-mile oval west of Milwaukee. In 2010, he won seven feature events at Slinger in the Modified division—a remarkable haul for a self-funded operation in one of the most competitive weekly programs in the Midwest. Seven wins. No sponsor. No crew. Just Prunty, his wife Karen, and a truck with a trailer.

The budget for the Snowball trip tells you everything you need to know about grassroots short-track racing. Prunty has set aside $5,000 for the entire expedition: fuel to drive from Wisconsin to Florida and back, entry fees, lodging, food, and—the line item that keeps him up at night—tires.

“The tire bill alone is going to run $3,800,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “That’s Hoosier asphalt tires. You need them to be competitive down there. I’m going to need two sets minimum for practice and qualifying, and then whatever I have left for the race. The math is pretty tight.”

For context: $3,800 in tires for a weekend. That is the price of entry to compete at the Snowball Derby, where factory-supported teams from Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas show up with enclosed trailers full of new rubber. Prunty’s car will be the oldest one in the field. His tires will be stretched further. His budget will be gone before the green flag drops on race day.

He’s going anyway.

The 2007 Rayburn chassis has been Prunty’s workhorse through years of Midwest Modified racing. He’s rebuilt it multiple times. The motor is a small-block Chevrolet that he built himself over the winter of 2009. By Snowball Derby standards—where purpose-built Super Late Models with fresh, professionally prepared engines are the norm—it is decidedly outgunned. Prunty knows this.

“I’m not going down there to win,” he said, and he means it sincerely rather than defensively. “I’m going to race, to compete, to see where I stack up against those guys. If I can finish in the top 20, that would be a successful trip for me. If I can make the feature at all, that’s something I’ll be proud of.”

In 2010, the Snowball Derby field included championship-caliber talent: drivers who race the ARCA Menards Series, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and the top echelons of southern super late model competition. For Prunty, making the feature—earning his way into the 300-lap main event against that competition—would be a significant achievement.

He finished 14th in 2010. He made the feature. Against the superstars of southern short-track racing, on a shoestring budget from Knowles, Wisconsin, Dennis Prunty finished 14th.

In 2011, Prunty plans to step up his program. He has been accepted to compete on the ASA Midwest Tour, a regional series that runs on tracks throughout Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The Midwest Tour is a bridge between weekly racing and the national scene—the level where consistent performers start attracting sponsor attention and semi-professional status. For Prunty, it represents the next logical step.

“This Snowball trip is kind of a test,” he explained. “See how we do against the best. Come home, work on the car all winter, and be ready for the Midwest Tour schedule. I think we have a shot at running up front in that series. The car is good. I know how to race. We just need the opportunities.”