As Ryan Ellis was standing inside the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Monday afternoon, a building that celebrates the most legendary names in the history of stock car racing, the newly announced driver of the No. 02 Young’s Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series couldn’t help but feel a bit out of place. Partly because he still feels like he doesn’t belong, but also because of how unlikely his road to a multi-year driving deal has been.
Ellis wasn’t born with a silver spoon and endless funding, something ultra-important for a prospective racing career. He also didn’t have a family-owned late model program or manufacturer driver development program waiting for him.
Instead, Ellis built his career the old-fashioned way. He pieced together rides, took on PR jobs to stay in the sport, and would resort to start-and-parking cars just to be seen. For so long, the story of Ellis was one of relevance through perseverance.
On Monday, though, the native of Ashburn, VA, wasn’t there to manage anyone else’s moment at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He was there for his own landmark announcement.
Ellis, alongside Tyler Young, the team principal for Young’s Motorsports, officially revealed the first long-term commitment of his professional racing career.
.@ryanellisracing on the move to @youngsmtrsports, the continued support from @TabloTV, and how his low #NASCAR25 Driver Rating and his haters fuel him to improve his race craft. pic.twitter.com/EuqZfhFQzH
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) November 10, 2025
“I think a lot of what attracted me to Tyler and Young’s Motorsports is the foundation that they’ve built,” Ellis said in a media scrum, reflecting on the announcement. “You’ve seen how quickly they’ve gone from just being a start-up team in the Xfinity/O’Reilly Series to having a really, really nice shop that I’m going to see for the first time tomorrow. And the speed that they’ve shown this year with Anthony [Alfredo] and last year with Leland [Honeyman] as well. So, excited to go there and have a close relationship with Chevy.”
For the first time in his entire career, Ellis will spend the offseason dialing in his race craft instead of dialing sponsors trying to fill out his schedule. He won’t need to worry about where he’ll race next year, hell, or 2027 for that matter.
Ellis finally gets to breathe.
“It’s so nice,” Ellis said, “for myself and also our sponsors, who are probably getting sick of changing car numbers over the last couple of years. So, just knowing that we can wear the same apparel for at least two years is awesome. From a job perspective, I have my kids right over my shoulder there, and it’s great to just be able to know I’m not sacrificing their future chasing this dream. We have some stability there, and that helps a ton.”
While Ellis has always lacked resources throughout his career, he has never lacked the ability to hustle. Which is why he’s likely still driving in circles for a living. He jokes that until recently, race prep meant not even having enough time for a few laps on iRacing, as he was busy with the business side of his ventures. Instead, he would simply show up to the track and hope he and his team could figure things out in the first 20 minutes of practice.
That changes now.
Ellis spent three hours in the Chevrolet simulator last week, something he’s never had more than one hour of access to before, and it’s something most full-time drivers consider an essential piece to the competitive puzzle that is being a NASCAR racer.
“Bristol, Charlotte Roval, and Vegas,” Ellis said, were the tracks he had the chance to run in his three-hour Simulator session. “And let me tell you, 8 AM in a motion Sim is rough when you run Bristol right off the bat for the first time. Because I was really happy I didn’t throw up. But it was so helpful, just being in that room and getting some of the advice they were passing off. I have not had that before, so that was really cool, and that was like the second day of the offseason. I guess nobody else wanted to do it, but either way, pretty cool.”
The goal is simple. Ellis wants to start the race weekend hitting his stride, not just catching up and hoping for improvement.
“I realized these kids are on the Sim a couple of days a week for several hours,” Ellis said. “I need to do that just to keep up. So, I think it’ll help a lot. But how much? TBD. I’m hoping it just helps us fire off a little better.”
Looking around the NASCAR Hall of Fame, in Uptown Charlotte, Ellis was able to reflect on what it means to finally have an event honoring his own racing career for a change.
“Yeah, it’s honestly the coolest thing in the world. Last time I was [at the NASCAR Hall of Fame] for an event, was planning one for Corey Lajoie. So, I was somewhere back there just trying to make sure everything went as good as possible. But I don’t feel like I’m even deserving enough to be let in here without paying my way in,” Ellis quipped. “So, to be here, to be in the Hall of Fame in general, and have the car here for maybe 20 more minutes is really, really cool for myself and our partners.”
Then Ellis paused and shook his head, thinking about the absurdity and reality of his path to the Young’s Motorsports ride.
“I feel like I’ve kind of broken the algorithm in this sport,” Ellis stated. “I didn’t have the family money to really be here at this level, and I did all I could to be relevant. I start-and-parked to being a PR guy for four years, and now to be at this point in my career, I feel like it’s a white collar Ricky Bobby story.”
While his career is a feel-good story for some, Ellis sees other online comments. The skepticism. The takes.
“When Young’s was tweeting about this yesterday, kind of hinting at the announcement, I saw a lot of comments like, ‘Oh, he’s good at selling sponsorships, but he sucks behind the wheel,'” Ellis said.
Ellis doesn’t run from the criticism. He uses it to fuel his competitive fire.
“I don’t feel like I’ve really had the results to really fight against that for the last year or two…” Ellis explained. “I need more of those top-10 runs. And I think I learned a lot last year in terms of how to execute. I get fueled a lot by the hate. I really want to get a couple of top-10s next year, two or three, and move up the point standings a good bit.”
While he hopes to turn around the thoughts of his biggest detractors in 2026, Ellis selfishly hopes his move to Young’s Motorsports can spark an improvement in his driver rating, currently a 58, in the NASCAR 25 video game.
“Well, it can’t get worse,” Ellis chuckled. “I could have never driven a car and had a better statistic.”
He continued, “So, I’m really excited for that, because I’m not really enjoying looking at the menu screen right now with my ratings.”
This multi-year driving contract doesn’t make the climb easy for Ellis by any means, but it does make it possible. Stability creates focus. Focus creates performance. Performance creates belief.
Ellis has spent a decade trying to get to this exact moment, the moment he could finally stop auditioning and start building. The 35-year-old journeyman racer has earned it. And he’s not done.
