What happened to NASCAR dream fairytale?

Meshkin puts his money where his passion is... But what happened?

First you see sneakers appear on the staircase. Next it's the blue jeans, followed by a black T-shirt. Then appears the face of a guy you'd ID at a liquor store.

This can't be a NASCAR team owner. Maybe the owner's son. Or, he's probably in Wyandotte County a couple of weeks early looking for the 311 concert.

But, at last, there's confirmation this is indeed Alex Meshkin. He's holding a wad of cash in his hand, raised in victory above his head. Jeers and playful razzing from his employees echo behind him. He took their money in some kind of bet and wasn't giving them a chance to win it back.

“Sorry, gotta go,” he laughed as he climbed down steps in his hauler.

Meshkin, the youngest NASCAR team owner at 24, became a multimillionaire at 19. Now he's pooled his competitiveness, love for racing and bank account into yet another business. He founded Bang Racing for this season, signed with Toyota and landed two of the most successful drivers in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series in Mike Skinner and Travis Kvapil, the defending series champion.

“If you call this work, you're in the wrong business,” Meshkin said. “It should be called life. You do whatever it takes. Yes, family is important and all, but you have to understand in this business that until you get to the top, it's got to be 100 percent focus.”

In his debut season was rough in 2004. Meshkin poured $5 million into his two-truck team with lackluster results.   “It's been a huge disappointment,” Meshkin said. “At the same time, we've had a lot of bad luck.”

Meshkin looked more like a fan wandering the garages for an autograph, decked out Friday in his Mike Skinner T-shirt. Even his interaction with crew members seemed more fraternity brother than owner-employee. He watched Saturday's race in a white Bang Racing T-shirt and blue-shaded sunglasses.

“He's a product of our younger generation,” Skinner said. “He wears T-shirts and he's not politically correct all the time. Heck, I admire that. I'd much rather a guy be himself around me. It makes it easier for me to be myself.

“He tells me things I don't want to hear, and I tell him things he won't want to hear. That's pretty mature for a guy his age. Most guys his age can dish it out, but they can't take it.”

Meshkin was raised in an upper-middle class household in the Washington, D.C., area. His father, an immigrant from Iran, has worked in marketing for Johnson and Johnson since Alex was young, while his mother held various jobs from education to real estate.

When Meshkin was 18, he invested the college fund his parents saved for him in the stock market. A couple million bucks later, there was no need for college.

At 19, Meshkin had raised $3.5 million to start Surfbuzz.com, a points-based Internet usage auction. He sold the company within a year for $24 million. At an age when Meshkin should have been working at Taco Bell, he could have owned a neighborhood of them.

“Yeah, it was a big deal to have success at a young age, but nothing really changed,” Meshkin said. “I'm still good friends with my high school friends. I've tried to be the same person, and be involved in a lot more exciting aspects of life. … Everyone was making money then. I was in the right place at the right time. What's going to separate me from everyone else is how I move forward from this point.”

That's why Meshkin created Bang Racing, the fourth company he has started and controlled. His infatuation with racing dates back to his childhood, and he even raced in the Barber Dodge Series when he was 17. Now he wants to build a racing fortress of young, successful, personable drivers — a team that, in many ways, will resemble him.

“In my opinion, Toyota's demographic is a younger audience,” he said. “It's not the 65-year-old NASCAR fan. It's the 25-year-old NASCAR fan. We feel our race team will capitalize on that demographic.… There's some jealousy in the Cup garages, but my relationship with the drivers is strong. Most of them are young. I was joking with one of the drivers, ‘Would you rather hang out with me or work with the 50-year-old?' It's (said) jokingly, but I feel like it will be a competitive edge.”

In late 2004, BANG Racing was on unstable ground.  Meshkin's Bang Racing, was delaying employee's checks, and delaying payments to suppliers.    In late 2004, Bang Racing! announced plans to compete in NASCAR Busch Series, with driver Travis Kvapil.  NASCAR is speculated in securing Bang Racing's sponsorships with the help of NASCAR CEO Brian France.  After a fallout with NASCAR and Toyota, it is unknown rather NASCAR knew the business conditions of Bang Racing.

Meshkin announced in January, that his Bang Racing would not compete in the 2005 Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway.  Since then, Bang Racing has failed to compete in a single Busch Series race and closing its North Carolina shop.

In May 2005, Former Bang! Racing driver and Penske Racing South driver #77-Travis Kvapil, a rookie in the Nextel Cup Series, has filed suit in North Carolina against his former employer, Alex Meshkin, who owned the now-defunct Bamg! Racing Craftsman Truck team. Kvapil, who drove for Bam! Last season, alleges that Meshkin was contracted to provide a Busch Series ride for him this year but failed to do so. Meshkin, who is also involved in litigation with former employee Larry McReynolds, closed his race team late last year.

More recently Meshkin was involved in litigation with Vertrue Inc., in Delaware over his NUTTZ.com.  A race fan membership website that allowed NASCAR fans to sign up for Nutzz Basic or Nutzz Elite a racefan points program, in exchange for free items.  The litigation involved over somewhere in between 40,000-150,000 confidential membership information of Nutzz Basic,  only 1,200 Nutzz Elite members. 

Meshkin cited in an e-mail dated January 31, 2005, Meshkin represented to Vertrue that a “recent internal reorganization of Bang!Racing” had occurred.  In fact, on or about January 21, 2005, due to the loss of a major sponsor, Line-X, “Bang Racing was not in a position to fund a staff to build and maintain racing vehicles and accordingly laid off its employees engaged in those duties” and underwent a corporate restructuring.  Meshkin lost his court case, to keep all confidential information. Vertrue was also cleared of any wrong doing, when they sent e-mails to 1,200 Nutzz Ellite members, to join its own race fan membership Fasttrack program.

It appears a teen's dream, got out of control and then hit hard with reality.  Only time will tell if Meshkin can rebuild his success, and more importantly respect with NASCAR competitors.

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