As a child, Caleb Holman remembers hearing the engines revving from the Morgan-McClure Motorsports complex situated a half-mile from his father's small Abingdon, Va., race shop.

Times have changed.

Morgan-McClure Motorsports moved into a different Abingdon shop 10 years ago. Darrell Holman, Caleb's father, is no longer racing.

And, for now, the engines at Morgan-McClure are silent.

For Caleb Holman, a 24-year-old Hooters Pro Cup driver whose first job out of high school was cleaning cars at Morgan-McClure, it's only natural to ponder last Friday's announcement that the team he grew up near would cease operations barring the swift acquisition of a primary sponsor.

"I guess it never really hit me what I was looking at and what was going on," Holman said, recalling his childhood days when he and his father would frequently visit the Morgan-McClure shop. "I loved racing, I loved watching it on TV. I saw the car on Sundays on TV but I don't know why it just never really clicked that, 'Man, I just walked by that car the other day and now it's at Daytona.'"

Holman isn't the only one fazed by Morgan-McClure's announcement. The team, which won the Daytona 500 in 1991 with driver Ernie Irvan and in 1994 and 1995 with Sterling Marlin, was notably absent from this week's preseason testing at Daytona after learning Dec. 21 that its primary sponsor, State Water Heaters, wouldn't return.

"There was no indication whatsoever from them in any way, shape, form or fashion until that time that they weren't coming back," team president Tim Morgan said in a phone interview on Monday.

Morgan said the team won't attempt to qualify its trademark No. 4 Chevrolet for next month's Daytona 500 unless a new sponsor or investor comes on board by the end of January. That seems unlikely, considering the organization's struggles to remain competitive over the past decade.

The team hasn't won since the late Bobby Hamilton drove to Victory Lane in the 1998 Martinsville spring race.

Last season, Morgan-McClure failed to qualify for 20 of 36 races with South Boston's Ward Burton and finished 47th in the points standings. The team didn't extend Burton's one-year contract for 2008 and has not signed a full-time driver.

Morgan blames the team's qualifying woes on NASCAR's rule that guarantees a spot in the field for the top 35 teams in each week's owner's points standings and leaves those outside the top 35 jockeying for a few coveted spots.

Under the present system, a driver could post the ninth-fastest time in qualifying and still miss the field.

"There's no doubt the top-35 rule prevented us from closing deals for sponsorship probably four or five times in the past couple years, ..." Morgan said. "Sponsors want to know they're going to be there on Sunday. They don't want to think maybe they're going to be there on Sunday or even probably that they're going to be there on Sunday. They want to know they're going to be there on Sunday. To get the dollars [and] the budget that you'd need, you've got to be able to tell them that."

Morgan did acknowledge that the team's downturn didn't start with the implementation of the top 35 rule in 2005.

It might have been when the company didn't add a second team in the mid-1990s, at a time when multi-car operations were becoming the standard in Cup.

"The single-car teams are all but done," said Stacy Compton, a Craftsman Truck Series driver who drove for Morgan-McClure in the 2003 Pepsi 400. "That's unfortunate, and it's bad to see that happen and it's bad to see the sport get to that point, but it's there. I'll say it now: you're not going to see any single-car teams be successful in Nextel Cup."

Another blow came when Kodak, a backer that became synonymous with Morgan-McClure over 18 years, discontinued its sponsorship at the end of the 2003 season. Scott Wimmer, who drove for Morgan-McClure in 2006, doesn't blame the team's struggles on a lack of effort.

"They are some of the hardest working people that I've ever drove for," said Wimmer, who now competes in the Nationwide Series (formerly Busch Series) for Richard Childress Racing. "It's sad to see them not have the funding they need to go ahead."

Another issue plaguing Morgan-McClure may be its location. It's the only team in Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup) located outside the Charlotte, N.C., area.

"I don't know if being in Virginia is hurting them at all," Wimmer said. "It seems like a lot of teams have to move to the Charlotte area to get a lot of people and a lot of personnel to work for them."

Morgan, who started the company with Larry McClure in 1983, says team management also failed to beef up its marketing efforts when the team was in its heyday.

Though Morgan said "there's a really good chance that we'll be back," it may be too late.

The company has laid off 24 of 28 employees. Though Morgan-McClure has six Cars of Tomorrow prepared for the 2008 season, it doesn't have a full-time driver. And its 25 race-ready engines are silent for now. Maybe for good.