Kyle Busch announces plans to own 2010 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series teams
Kyle Busch Motorsports owner/driver Kyle Busch addresses the media about the announcement of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team on Friday. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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CHARLOTTE - Kyle Busch officially entered the ownership ranks of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series on Friday, announcing at a news conference plans to field a pair of full-time Kyle Busch Motorsports entries in 2010.
Busch, who has driven a part-time schedule in the Truck series for Billy Ballew Motorsports since 2005, will compete in select races for his own team while sharing driving duties with 24-year-old Brian Ickler. The team will also field an additional full-time entry for second-year Truck driver Tayler Malsam and Busch said that he would also like to run a truck for 2008 series champion Johnny Benson, if he can find sponsorship.
“My single biggest reason for doing this was just the pure love for the sport and enjoyment of being where I’m at and having the opportunity to help the young drivers and hopefully to get Johnny in a truck,” said Busch, who competes in the Sprint Cup Series for Joe Gibbs Racing. “ … When I feel like this program develops into something that it’s really proud of, that I’m really proud of, then maybe it’ll be a Nationwide program that comes next.”
Busch’s No. 18 truck will be sponsored by Miccosukee Resort and Gaming, which is moving its sponsorship from Billy Ballew to KBM. The No. 18 truck will be fully sponsored for the whole season.
Rick Ren, who left his post as crew chief for Ron Hornaday at Kevin Harvick Inc. on Dec. 3, will serve as director of competition for KBM.
Ren guided Hornaday to championships in 2007 and 2009 at KHI, and was with Hornaday when he finished second in the standings behind Benson in 2008.
“I’ve had an accomplished career and I’m good with that,” Ren said. “This opportunity to get to work with Kyle and these young drivers was a challenge."
Busch said that he and Ren are in the process of finding crew chiefs for the two full-time trucks.
The organization will employ approximately 50 people to start, Busch said. Busch added that he hopes to follow the operational model set forth at JGR, the team with which he has scored 12 of his 16 Sprint Cup wins since joining the organization at the beginning of 2008.
“It was hard for me to kind of go in there at first and explain to them what I wanted to do and what undertaking I was getting ready to do, especially with the schedule I already run throughout the year,” said Busch, who also plans to run a part-time schedule next season in the Nationwide Series where he is the reigning series champion. “But they were supportive in it and they were like, ‘Anything we can do to help, we’d love to be able to help you out.'"
Malsam, 20, spent his 2009 rookie season competing for Randy Moss Motorsports, scoring one top-five and 10 top-10s and finishing 12th in the standings. He will drive the No. 56, which will be sponsored by Activwater in select races.
Ickler is a Busch protégé who shared seat time with Busch at Ballew Ballew Motorsports last season in its No. 51 Toyota and also made select starts in the organization’s No. 15 truck.
KBM already fields Late Model cars and is in the process of completing a new building that will house the Truck team, the team announced on Friday. For now, the team will compete out of the shop formerly occupied by Xpress Motorsports, from which Busch purchased the assets to start KBM's truck program.
Busch expects to be able to move into the new shop, located in Mooresville, N.C., by April 1. He declined to comment on the purchase price of the Xpress shop, which is also in Mooresville.
"Joe Scott, who owned the deal who is [driver] Brian [Scott's] dad, made a sweet deal for me," Busch said. "So that's why we went that route in order to have a building to get started with and have some trucks to get started with. We've got a lot of work to do, though."
Busch did say he doesn't expect to make a profit in his first season as an owner.
"Of course, I have the benefit of being able to make the money I do make in the Sprint Cup Series, but I would rather not spend it all, trust me," Busch said. "I need a retirement fund, too."
Brian Scott, the lone driver for Xpress Motorsports this past season, is moving to the Nationwide Series to compete for Braun Racing in 2010.
