Catchfence

TWO OF NASCAR’S NEWEST OWNERS HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN MEETS THE EYE
Similar demeanors … same drive to win … a car owner in common … and similar business models …

Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart share mutual characteristics beyond unbridled passion, NASCAR championships and the tendency to bristle at an ill-timed reporter’s question. They both have blazed the path to team ownership in much the same fashion.

In December, Busch announced his foray into NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team ownership with Kyle Busch Motorsports and brought drivers Tayler Malsam and Brian Ickler along for the ride.

In the short time since the deal was put together, Busch’s two-truck operation’s inception in several ways closely parallels Stewart’s building of Stewart-Haas Racing in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Busch continues to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing at the Cup level while Stewart enjoyed a 10-year run and two Cup championships at JGR.

When he jumped feet first into NASCAR ownership, Stewart many times was quick to credit Gibbs for leading by example and demonstrating how a business should be run. Busch was right behind him a year later.

“Joe (Gibbs) and J.D. (Gibbs, President, Joe Gibbs Racing) were very supportive in the whole process,” Busch said during the KBM press conference carried live on SPEED in December. “I feel like they have really come to me and have taken me by the arm and helped lead me into this ownership role … being able to have J.D. give me some of the Joe Gibbs Racing resources in order to help our team out as well.”

“What’s really amazing is to watch the maturation of both Kyle and Tony from the time they met Joe Gibbs to a few years later and how much they’re grown and changed by being around him,” said SPEED reporter Ray Dunlap. “Obviously, they learned a great deal of business acumen from him, but it’s more about dealing with people and how much they both improved their communication processes after knowing Coach.”

Additionally, both driver/owners hired top-notch personnel to lead their organizations out of the gate with Stewart’s wooing of Bobby Hutchens as director of competition along with crew chiefs Darian Grubb and Tony Gibson, and Busch’s quick hiring of Ron Hornaday Jr.’s championship-winning crew chief, Rick Ren, as director of competition at KBM.

“They (Busch and Stewart) both have the Gibbs’ philosophy of doing things,” Ren said. “I’m sure they’ve both had many conversations with Coach and JD (Gibbs) before stepping out in their ventures. Right now is a good time, and it was for Tony last year, to be hiring because there are a lot of good people out of a job … it actually is a good time to get quality people.”

“Coach Gibbs is a people person,” said Darrell Waltrip, three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion who will serve as an analyst for SPEED’s coverage of the Truck Series. “Gibbs’ operation has all the right people in key places and that’s what I like about what Kyle has done. He has hired the master of the Truck Series to run the operation in Rick Ren and has a couple of good crew chiefs. Tony put together a strong operation with good personnel last year. I think both guys have learned from Gibbs that placing management and skilled people in the right places will make them successful. It’s not a big secret but a lot of guys sometimes ignore that and end up in a lot of trouble.”

Not only did Busch and Stewart make all the right hiring decisions, each was fortunate enough to form teams out of existing infrastructure – Stewart taking the reins of the former Haas CNC Racing and making it his own, while Busch purchased assets from the former Xpress Motorsports Truck Series team and also relies on the Joe Gibbs Racing camp.

“We’re going to be able to utilize some of their (JGR) pit crew, like their pit crew coaches to come coach our guys, we’re going to utilize some of their in-shop stuff — chassis structure, builds, CNC machine work, transmissions, gears — stuff like that,” Busch said. “Really, they’ve been instrumental in helping me and bringing us along so we can kind of take some of the expense of what it costs to operate and lower those and have the help of those guys.”

“There are several very close parallels between what Tony did last year and what Busch is doing this year,” said Phil Parsons, SPEED analyst and former NASCAR driver. “Busch inherited some of Brian Scott’s equipment, so that will make it a little easier than building everything new from the ground up. Kyle has formed his team in exactly the right manner, which is what we said about Tony going into 2009. Tony didn’t start from scratch – he came into an existing team, put his stamp and style on it, just like Kyle is doing, and brought in great people. I certainly look for Kyle to have success right off the bat.”

But Dunlap cautions that Busch still has a long road ahead of him.

“Kyle’s challenge may be a little bit bigger even than Tony’s was based on the fact that Tony’s building was already in place and he just had to organize the people,” Dunlap commented. “Kyle’s task may be more daunting because they’re not in their permanent building yet and are operating out of a temporary situation, rehabbing trucks and building new stuff.”

These challenges aren’t lost on Busch, either.

“The ownership standpoint, it’s going to put a lot of gray hairs in pretty quick,” Busch joked. “I can see where Tony gets it now from … But, you know, it’s fun. It’s fun. It’s a very, very big challenge.”

Despite these obstacles, could Kyle Busch Motorsports become the Stewart Haas Racing of the Truck Series in 2010? Ren says the potential is definitely there.

“I think so,” Ren said. “We’ve got the opportunity. I think we’ve put together the right group of people. Until you actually go get your feet wet at the race track a couple of times, you’re not going to really know how you stack up. I think we have the potential. I was very pleased at the test we went to at how everything was orchestrated. Everyone did a great job and I don’t see why we can’t be the ones people look up to after a period of time – not right now – right now you’ve still got to look up to KHI, but I think we have the opportunity to be one of the top-notch guys.”

SPEED™, anchored by its popular and wide-ranging coverage of NASCAR, is the nation’s first and only cable television network dedicated to automotive and motorcycle racing, performance and lifestyle. Now available in more than 79 million homes in North America, SPEED is among the industry leaders in interactive TV, video on demand, mobile initiatives and broadband services. For more information, please visit SPEEDtv.com, the online motor sports authority.

- SPEED TV, Press Release