December 13, 2009
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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In an era when starting a new NASCAR team is a shaky venture, starting three at once is indeed jumping in the deep end of the pool.
When you do it and take a driver and sponsor from the guy you just spent two years driving for, it seems a bit like bad business.
When the guy who is putting it all together is Kyle Busch, it really makes you wonder “What is he thinking?”
Not that I don’t think Kyle should start his own team. He isn’t the first, and won’t be the last to take on ownership while still active as a driver. (However, he is the youngest to do it, at least to my knowledge.) I actually think being the owner of Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) might be a good thing for Kyle. For a 24-year-old who has a history of acting like a three-year-old when he doesn’t get his way, this might just be the eye opening event to make the three-year-old mature into the 24-year-old.
Photo Kyle Busch Motorsports
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L to R Brian Ickler, Kyle Busch, Tayler Malsam
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It certainly has worked for Kevin Harvick (Kevin Harvick Incorporated) and Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Racing), two of NASCAR’s notorious bad boys who have grown markedly since putting their names over the doors of their respective race shops.
Not that maturity should make the man “vanilla”, as many fear will happen when Kyle does grow up. Just because Tony has stopped throwing fits every time something doesn’t go his way doesn’t make him any less passionate about his job, and when he feels he has been wronged, he still has no qualms letting the other guy know about it. Harvick hasn’t let being the owner of a Championship truck team prevent him from knocking others around him, out of his way.
However, gone are the days of thrown helmets, pushed media, and threatened fist fights with other drivers.
But back to Kyle and the newly formed KBM Camping World Truck Series teams.
While the idea of starting a new two (possibly three) truck team is daunting, it appears Kyle is taking advantage of the surplus of good team members without a job…or even who had a job but were looking for a new challenge.
I can also appreciate that he has stated that one of the reasons he is starting the team is to give younger drivers the same opportunity he had. Signing a 20-year old and a 24-year old is his way to try and give new blood a chance to make their name in the top tier of the sport.
“It’s fun for me to try to give back to the young drivers and that’s why I want to have Tayler (Malsam) in there to try to help bring him along and mentor him a little bit because I don’t just want to run the Harvick deal,” Busch said during a press conference Friday. “I don’t want to have an experienced guy that’s not going anywhere in the sport. He’s just going to stay there and run for championships in the Truck series
year-after-year-after-year-after-year. I want to have this as a stepping stone. We don’t have any young drivers coming up through the ranks. It’s time. We’ve got to bring that back along a little bit.”
Not to say that Busch doesn’t appreciate the benefits of having an older driver within his ranks. Besides the 20-year-old Malsam and 24-year-old Brian Ickler, Busch has promised a ride to 46-year-old Johnny Benson if he can find a company to sponsor him.
"It means a lot to have Johnny as part of this team, and we hope to be able to run him in a full championship effort this season," explained Busch.
While nothing has been confirmed, Sirius Speedway’s Dave Moody reported earlier in the week that KBM had met with Exide Batteries about possibilities to sponsor Benson in some fashion next season.
Bringing Benson into the fold would not only provide KBM with a seasoned veteran to help tutor his new drivers, but would bring in a large fan base that has supported the highly popular 2008 Craftsman Truck Series Champion, even though he has not had a ride since winning his championship 12 months ago.
Another voice of experience will come in the form of Rick Ren. The 52-year old Ren, who has two Championships as the crew chief for Ron Hornaday, will serve as the team’s director of competition.
“A person can work their whole career in any profession and not get an opportunity like this,” Ren said on Friday. “I’ve been involved in some other start-up, ground-floor programs, but not of this magnitude. It’s a great opportunity for me and everyone who will be a part of Kyle Busch Motorsports. There have been great racecar drivers, but Kyle has the opportunity to be one of the all-time greats. Getting the chance to help a guy like that who has a dream of building his own race team is an honor.”
Busch will be behind the wheel of the No. 18 Miccosukee Resort & Gaming Toyota Tundra on weekends when the Camping World Truck Series runs along with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (the same sponsor he had last season while driving for Billy Ballew). On the weekends he isn’t in the truck, Ickler will take the wheel. Malsam will drive the No. 56 Toyota Tundra full time.
A brand new facility for KBM is currently under construction, and until it is ready, the team will operate from the Xpress Motorsports shop in Mooresville, N.C.
So, will Kyle Busch prove to be as successful as a team owner as he has been as a driver? Only time will tell. It appears he has a good foundation for his effort. But is he mature enough to manage the reigns of a team that hopes to one day be on the same level as Kevin Harvick Incorporated, or more? One suggestion I would make is to sit down with Harvick and Stewart and get as many pointers as possible, both on the ownership and the attitude fronts. Just because you are a talented driver doesn’t ensure that you will have great success as an owner, especially if you don’t have the maturity to manage your own career without having weekly meltdowns when things don’t go your way.
How Busch reacts the first time his team wads up both trucks, or one truck takes another out, or when the team misses a lug nut and loses the driver a top ten finish will go a long way to showing how he will deal with the trials and tribulations that go with being a major league owner.
Because just because you have Championship-caliber talent behind the wheel doesn’t mean you can run a successful NASCAR team.
Just ask Darrell Waltrip or Cale Yarborough.
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