Pedersen is holding an auction dinner on Friday, January 24, at the Bev Ridges on York in Napier at $95 a head to raise funds to return there for a second season with another team, Dale Earnhardt Junior Development Team.
"I had to switch because the other team didn't help out," he says, adding the dinner here will have Hollywood actor Temuera Morrison as chief guest speaker as well as fellow Kiwi and motocross world champion Ben Townley.
Peter "The Mad Butcher" Leitch will be among the guests as Pedersen hopes to sell 150 seats for the three-course dinner.
"We're halfway there with 70 after selling them mostly over Christmas."
For his stint last year, Rotorua-born Pedersen went door-knocking to raise $120,000 through sponsorship from Bay and Rotorua companies but this year he yearns for something in the vicinity of $500,000.
He worked as a motor mechanic's assistant in Sacramento last year between race meetings.
"People think you're in the US making lots of money but it isn't like that at all."
Those drivers lucky enough to scale the dizzy heights in the higher echelons of the Nascar association meetings tend to pocket up to US$70 million ($84 million) a season.
"I'm shaping up pretty decent as a fifth-tier driver in 32 tiers of Nascar racing, so that's quite cool."
He is happy to bide his time, to hone his driving skills to hopefully work his way up to the top where the Dale Earnhardt Jnrs, Jimmie Johnsons and Carl Edwards of today savour when they buckle in for a hard ride in their Toyotas, Chevrolets and Fords.
Marketing himself as HP Racing, Pedersen emphasises investors do take a risk with him but also realise the returns will be enormous once he finds his niche among the elite.
"I'm trying to do the same thing as [New Zealand IndyCar champion] Scott Dixon did when he started out from Auckland."
This is the teenager who marched up to the daunting gates to the palatial home of German-born internet tycoon Kim Dotcom in Auckland last November to try his luck with sponsorship. "The sentry at the gates told me to get lost," he says with a grin.
His auction dinner may look like loose change but Pedersen says they all add up.
Last year the website-driven "Sports Funder", where fans donate $5 each to nominated athletes, netted him $10,000.
"Nothing comes easy," he says but adds the satisfaction of one day saying "I've done it" against all odds will be worth it.
Pedersen found traction with Nascar after stumbling on to a drivers' development website while surfing the internet.
He responded and was soon packing his suitcase to jet off to sign up with 1600 other hopefuls.
"I was one of 50 young drivers selected to race in the US."
To top it off, he says, he was the top driver and the only non-American entry.
That landed him a stint with Ron Sutton's Winners Circle, costing him $9000 just to get there but worth every dime.
"I was humbled. I thanked everyone after the race that day and gave them all credit for my achievement."
It was a big deal for him and his parents, Napier welder Mark and Sharyn Pedersen, a farm secretary, who settled in the Bay recently.
Hayden Pedersen comes from a family of pedigree drivers.
His uncle, David Pedersen, is shifting gears in the New Zealand V8 Series.
Cousin Anthony Pedersen is in the V8 Super Tour Series. In that sense, Hayden Pedersen's destiny was already mapped out.
He was easing into the driver's seat of go-karts at the age of 13. He finished third in his maiden national go-kart meeting. Progressively he got on to the podium with some regularity as the class and grades became more intense.
"My parents then started to support me. I also won a scholarship at the age of 15 to race in the Formula First Series where I finished fifth and was named rookie of the year."
The following year Pedersen raised the octane levels to the New Zealand V8 Touring Series to feel the spray from the magnum of champagne in third place. He was the youngest driver in the series by 10 years. He jets off to the US late next month.
