Homestead: Kyle Busch preview

Ballew - Busch Still in the Owner's Championship Hunt; 'Team still mathematically eligible in tight 2008 points battles'

Billy Ballew Motorsports will head to the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway with Kyle Busch behind the wheel of the No. 51 Miccosukee Resort Toyota Tundra. Ballew and Busch have had a successful season posting three wins, 10 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. Busch scored all but one of the statistics in just 17 races of the 25 series season with Shane Sieg notching a ninth place finish for the team in Memphis.

With this success Ballew goes to the Homestead-Miami Speedway still in contention for the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series owner's championship. Busch scored a second place finish and led the most laps in Phoenix last weekend closing the gap on the first and second position. The team sits in the third place position, just 98 points out of the lead. The deficit is a difficult one to make up but both Ballew and Busch are optimistic at the chance.

"We still have a shot at winning the owners title if we have a good run at Homestead," Busch said. "The owner's title might be a stretch, but we will go out there like we do every week and race for the win and see what happens. You really can't worry about where the other guys are running. Billy and all the whole team have been through a lot over the last few weeks so we would like to finish off the season right for those guys."

With success comes difficult times, while in route to the Texas Motor Speedway October 8th, the No. 51 transporter caught fire destroying all but one race truck. That truck, number 11 finished second in Homestead and will be the truck the team is bringing to the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway this week.

"We're going to use one of the Kyle Busch Motorsports haulers this weekend that I normally have my Late Model stuff in for Billy's guys to get to Homestead," said Busch. "Pretty much all the springs, shocks, radios and everything else was lost in the trailer fire. I'm just proud of how hard those guys have worked to get us to the race track over the final three weeks and we will try our best to get them to victory lane this weekend."

"It's pretty remarkable for our team guys to overcome the adversity we've had in the few weeks and to be still in the mix for a championship," Billy Ballew said. "Kyle's (Busch) missed seven of the 24-races to date and to still be only ninety some points out speaks highly of this whole organization. I have to thank Shane Sieg for stepping in and keeping us up in the points when Kyle's schedule didn't allow for him to drive the truck. We'll head to Homestead and race our race like we normally do and see where we are once the checkered flag drops."

Billy Ballew Motorsports has eight previous starts at the Homestead, Florida track, with a best finish of second posted in 2007 by Busch. Busch has seven previous starts in Homestead in all three premier NASCAR National Touring Series. Busch has one top-five finish in both the NASCAR Nationwide Series and Craftsman Truck Series. He has posted two top-10 finishes in the Truck Series and one in the Nationwide Series.

-credit: bbm