Christopher Greco is, by every variation of the definition, a rookie stockcar driver. Fresh off the go-kart racing circuit, a racing tour he was comfortable and quite successful at for several years, Greco, a 2004 Unadilla Valley High School graduate, is attempting to make one giant leap toward his dream: To become a NASCAR driver.

His vision started innocently enough as he perused the racing classified website, flag2flag.com. There, he noticed an advertisement from Lafferty Motorsports, a burgeoning race team that fields a part-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck entry. “The advertisement was trying to get drivers from around the country down there (to North Carolina) to see which ones were committed and which ones want to test (race cars),” Greco said.

Lafferty Motorsports’ idea was to develop drivers with the purpose of putting them behind the wheel of its Craftsman truck. Greco was one of several drivers to make the trip to North Carolina, and he became a part of an extreme minority when he had the opportunity to test run a NASCAR Craftsman truck. Only one percent of all racecar drivers have sat behind the wheel of a Craftsman truck, and the new opportunity afforded him by Lafferty Motorsports satiated any lingering doubts about Lafferty’s intentions.

“I was skeptical at first, and I had been on a NASCAR Busch East team, and was set up as the second driver,” Greco said, noting he understood the basic premise of a NASCAR-oriented effort. “When I went to meet Chris Lafferty, he gave me the lectures about what was going to happen, how they would evaluate me, and go from there. It was like all the pieces in a puzzle fitting together. It all made sense to me. Chris Lafferty builds engines for a lot of race teams down south, so he is a well-known, respected businessman.”