NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
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TRUCKS: Billy Ballew Team Not Missing A Beat
Billy Ballew Motorsports has remained a contender without Kyle Busch...
Jared Turner  |  Posted July 07, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Aric Almirola (Right) talks with team owner Billy Ballew (Left) prior to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series VFW 200 at Michigan International Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
When Kyle Busch revealed plans last December to start his own NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team, some observers wondered whether Billy Ballew Motorsports would survive.

Could the organization really contend without Busch, a winner of 16 races over five partial seasons spent mostly in BBM’s flagship No. 51 Toyota?

Now nine races into the post-Kyle era, the answer is vividly clear: Billy Ballew Motorsports hasn’t just survived in Busch’s absence – it’s actually thrived.

With Aric Almirola now the full-time pilot on the No. 51 and a rotating crop of talent both old and new sharing the seat of Ballew’s No. 15 entry, the organization remains a formidable challenger heading into race 10 of the 2010 Truck campaign.

While Almirola is right in the thick of the championship hunt with two wins and a runner-up points position, the No. 15 truck has been solid in its own right with a cast of drivers that has included former series champions Ted Musgrave and Johnny Benson and relative series newcomers Nelson Piquet Jr. and Steve Wallace.

How has BBM managed to keep on truckin’ minus the driver often credited with putting the organization on the map?

“For whatever reason I think my guys have just dug down a little harder and it’s just really worked,” said team owner Billy Ballew, a Georgia businessman who entered the series in 1996. “It’s not like that we’ve done anything to make it any better. Matter of fact, we probably have less employees – I know we do on the 15 truck – than we had last year.
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“I just feel like that we’ve done better as a company as a whole.”

Almirola’s Richie Wauters-led team has led the charge, running up front on a consistent basis and steering clear of the calamities that have wreaked havoc on others with fast trucks.

Partly because of being up front and partly a result of good luck, Almirola has finished no worse than 12th all season. His best outings, of course, have been his two wins which have both come in the last four races – first at Dover and most recently last time out at Michigan.


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