Catchfence

“‘Driver Puts Ballew in Reach of NCWTS Owner’s Championship”

Phoenix, Arizona (November 14, 2009)- Kyle “Rowdy” Busch and the No. 51 Miccosukee Resort/Graceway Pharmaceuticals™ Toyota Tundra NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team posted a second-place finish Friday, November 13, 2009 at Phoenix International Raceway in the running of the Lucas Oil 150.

Busch placed the Billy Ballew Motorsports entry in the fourth-place position on the starting grid for the 150-lap race on the 1-mile Phoenix, Arizona short track.

Busch took the point position away on lap 14, holding the lead for 30-laps but was unable to regain the spot posting a second-place finish in the Lucas Oil 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.

“We didn’t have enough for the (Kevin) Harvick trucks tonight,” Kyle Busch said. (Ron) Hornaday kind of battled for a championship, played it smart and (Kevin) Harvick was really fast like I said before. We came home second. It was a good day for the Miccosukee Toyota Tundra. We gained from last year. (Kevin) Harvick whooped our butt pretty bad last year but we gained on it a little bit. If we had another gain like that we probably would be able to keep up with him or win.

“The race was about what I expected, it wasn’t bad. I expected the 4 (Kevin Harvick) truck to be really, really good in which he was. I guess he wasn’t driving in the beginning of the race. He was just holding back seeing what everybody had. Our truck was good. We made a gain on it from last year to this year distance wise from (Kevin) Harvick. Harvick was just stupid fast last year. This year I felt like we made a gain. If we can make another one of those gains next year then we’ll be right on him. Overall, the Miccosukee Tundra was good. We led some laps and tried to go for the win but just didn’t quite have enough on those restarts there.”

With Busch’s second-place finish it puts team owner Billy Ballew closer to picking up the 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Owners Points Championship as the team heads to the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The team gained 40 points in Phoenix, sitting just 60 points behind Kevin and Delana Harvick (#33).

“I can’t close the gap, I’ve got to take that gap. They’re going to race next week hard as ever. They’re going to go and try to win the race. That’s going to be the plan. They’ve got the driver’s championship locked up so if they go out there and try to win the race and are successful at that then we can’t catch them. But if they go out there and try to win the race and have problems by having issues whether it’s a wreck or engine or a tire – it could be anything. That’s why we race races. Hopefully we can battle it out and have a good, strong run and see if we can’t beat them. Sixty points, I don’t know how many spots that is but I take it that it’s probably 17 or so. So it’s going to be hard to do.”

The No. 51 Miccosukee Resort / Graceway Pharmaceuticals™ team heads next to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the final 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Friday, November 20, 2009. The Ford 200 (134 lap, 201 mile) NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race is slated for Friday, November 20, 2009 at 8:00pm ET.

- Billy Ballew Motorsports Press Release