NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
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TRUCKS: Owner Battle Red Hot
Kyle Busch Motorsports leads the Truck Series owner points...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 05, 2010   Fort Worth, TX
No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports team is on the cusp of winning the Truck Series owners' title. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
While Todd Bodine is all but guaranteed a second NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship this year, the race for the owners’ title remains wide open with three races to go.

The champion drivers get the lion’s share of the attention in NASCAR’s top three divisions, but the sanctioning body also recognizes the championship car or truck owners as well.

Heading into tonight’s WinStar World Casino 350k Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, Bodine leads Aric Almirola by 216 points in the driver points. But the leading truck on the owner points side of the ledger is the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, which leads Bodine’s No. 30 Germain Racing Toyota by a narrow 42-point margin.

Team owner Kyle Busch has raced the No. 18 to six victories this season, while Brian Ickler, Johnny Benson and Kasey Kahne have driven the No. 18 when Busch’s Sprint Cup commitments precluded him from running the truck.

For Busch, who is in the first year of team ownership and is actively looking for sponsorship for 2011, winning the owners’ title would be huge, and it will play a role in how he races tonight.

“Right now with what we’re doing, our main goal is to go out here — we want to win, but we know we need to finish strong and finish in front of the 30 truck (Bodine) to try to win the owners' championship,” said Busch, who qualified third for tonight’s race. “That right there is going to be a huge task.”

Bodine, who qualified fifth, is a six-time Texas winner. Busch said Thursday night that his entire team is focused on holding Bodine off and capturing the owners' championship.

“All our guys back at the shop — that's all they’ve been fighting for all year,” said Busch. “They want to win races and now that they have a chance for a championship. Some of them it’s their first championship; others like Rick Ren (general manager), it’s just another level that he’s been at an organization. He hasn’t won a championship as a general manager. He’s teaching all these guys. He used to be the leader and make the decision. Well, now Eric (Phillips, crew chief) is making a lot of the decisions.”

Busch doesn’t need motivation to win as it is, but this challenge is a little extra incentive.
Team owner Kyle Busch (Left) and Brian Ickler (Right) are among the drivers who have shared time in the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports entry this season. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“These guys are pumped about it,” Busch said. “We want to build what we can in the last few weeks and show how strong we are and how built this program is and what we’re ready for next year when we get to Daytona.”

Busch said that during the race, he will pay close attention to what Bodine is doing.

“It was probably Kentucky where we were leading the race and Bodine spun out and then he came to pit road and he was going to be like two laps short on fuel,” Busch said. “In that scenario, if he does that we’ve got to do the same thing because we’re racing the 30 truck. That’s all we’re racing. So, if he comes down pit road and is going to be two laps short and is going to try to stretch it on fuel, we’ve got to play the same strategy. We can’t take our chance of staying out there and waiting for a caution because if the caution comes out then we still have to come to pit road. ... You’ve got to be smart about it right now and I don’t think you can take too many chances, but the main guy that you watch is the 30.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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