Kyle Busch has crew chiefs in place for new Truck team
Kyle Busch is still trying to get into the swing of NASCAR team ownership, but he already has a number of key personnel members in place.
Busch, who expanded his Kyle Busch Motorsports operation from a Late Model team into what he hopes will be a three-truck operation in 2010, isn’t spending every day at the shop but is beginning to understand what it will take to be a team owner in the Camping World Truck Series.
“It’s going to put a lot of gray hairs in pretty quick,” the 24-year-old Busch joked. “… It’s fun, [but] it’s a very, very big challenge.”
Rick Ren, who won series titles as crew chief for Ron Hornaday in two of the last three years, is the team's competition director and has most of the personnel in place. Eric Phillips, who most recently was with Randy Moss Motorsports, will be crew chief for the truck shared by Busch and Brian Ickler. Dan Stillman, who spent much of last year as crew chief for Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards in the Nationwide Series, will be the crew chief for Tayler Malsam.
Both have worked with Ren before; Phillips at Bang Racing and Stillman at Kevin Harvick Inc.
“I’ve had a really good relationship with Eric for years,” said Busch, who drove select races in 2003 for Nemco Motorsports, where Phillips served as car chief. “I’ve liked Eric. I feel like he was a hot commodity, one of the best in the Truck garage. We think he’ll be a good fit.”
Busch is still working to get a third full-time truck on the track with Johnny Benson as the driver.
“Things have been coming along really well,” Busch said. “We’re still working on sponsorship projects for Johnny Benson in order to get him down to Daytona. We have until the 22nd [of January] to make something happen [with] that.
“We’ll see how it works out. But I’d really like to get Johnny down to Daytona and be able to have him compete for a championship for Kyle Busch Motorsports.”
In addition to finding sponsorship, simple things such as learning everyone’s name is on the agenda for Busch, who said Saturday he was expecting to be at the shop today for the first time since the holidays.
“It’s about trying to get all the people together and have everybody learn each other’s names. We have name tags around the shop [that say], ‘Hello, my name is,’” Busch said.
