From stressed out to strapped in, it's been a sudden turnaround - and a welcome one - for Cranberry Township native Travis Geisler.

Geisler, 23, a former Lernerville Speedway and Motordrome race driver, entered this racing season without a ride for the first time in his six-year career on asphalt.

The son of veteran Lernerville Late Model driver Lynn Geisler had decided he needed to land with another race team.

"I resigned myself to the fact I wasn't going to be able to compete at the level I needed to be at on my own," Geisler said. "I had to get involved with somebody pre-established."

It's not that Geisler did badly on his own. He had a solid collection of sponsors, owned 10 feature wins on asphalt, three fast-time awards and received Most Improved Driver awards twice.

He closed last year by finishing sixth in the ARCA race in South Boston, Va., while driving driver Andy Belmont's backup car.

Geisler raced in ASA, ARCA and NASCAR Touring Series races last season.

"I decided I couldn't get to the next level financially on my own," he said.

So he began introducing himself to car owners at various tracks last year - about 30 owners, in fact - with the hope a deal would come his way.

But the 2004 season got under way and Geisler was without a ride.

"It was pretty stressful," he said. "I was picking up any kind of work I could to stay afloat money-wise. I didn't want a full-time job because that would have limited me travel-wise."

He worked on a fire truck, drove a truck from California to Atlanta and performed maintenance on a 1972 Chevy truck. He was preparing to move to Charlotte, N.C., "and start looking for any type of job with a race team."

Geisler was a week away from such a move when he received a call from Ohio natives John McGill and Carl Natale, owners of DCT Motorsports and the No. 36 NASCAR Busch Grand National Series race car.

They were looking for a young driver to split time with veteran driver Steve Grissom.

"They're from Cleveland and I introduced myself to them at a race in Charlotte last year," Geisler said. "We maintained contact over the winter, and they thought I'd be a good fit for them."

McGill said in a story on Geisler's website that "we're building our team not just for this year, but for a strong future as well, and having a young talent like Travis behind the wheel is a tremendous opportunity for us and him."

Grissom is expected to serve as the team's general manager and will drive 12 races this season.

The crew chief for the No. 36 is Ricky Pearson, son of three-time Winston Cup champion David Pearson.

"He's great," Geisler said of Pearson. "And we work great together. We hit it off almost immediately and we communicate extremely well, which is something a crew chief and driver have to do well."

Geisler recently moved to Spartanburg, S.C., and is working full time for DCT Motorsports.

He qualified 23rd and finished 24th in his Busch series debut last weekend at the Pepsi 300 in Nashville, Tenn.

Geisler's next race will be the Charter 250 May 8 at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill.

"My goal is to help make us a consistent top-15 team," Geisler said. "We could have finished 18th last week, but a flat left front tire occurred two laps before a caution came out and really broke our back.

"It's very critical I do well this year. This is a sport where you have to perform. There's too much money and effort put forward to be anything but 100 percent efficient," he added.

Geisler, who graduated from Vanderbilt University last spring with a mechanical engineering degree, said his preseason goal was to run the ARCA series steady this year and that running the Busch series "was a dream, not reality."

Now the dream is reality.

His ultimate goal is to race on the NASCAR Nextel Cup circuit.

"I feel like I'm a year or two ahead of schedule now," he said. "Now I have to maintain that pace."