actually ran fairly well prior to moving up. He never ran a full season in Nationwide prior to moving up, but he showed a ton of speed. He crashed or finished well. In 1996 he ran 5 races for Ranier, old Harry put him in a car that sucked. He did manage a 16th and 17th at Bristol and Dover. The other amazing thing was he actually qualified that pice of junk when most drivers would have missed the field.

In 97 he ran five races and qualified well when he did run. He ran in hand me down Gibbs cars owned by Bobby Labonte that year. In those five starts he had a 9th and a 3rd place finish. He crashed out of the other three races.

In 1998 he did 22 races for Gibbs prior to moving to Cup. He had two poles that year and again showed a ton of speed. He had something like 5 top 5 and 5 top 10 finishes that year. Being a part time effort as well as Gibbs' first real year in Nationwide his cars were not as good as what Gibbs was fielding in Cup, but he got more out of them than most drivers could have.