Kyle 'Rowdy' Busch in the No. 51 Miccosukee Resort/Graceway Pharmaceutical Toyota Tundra returns to Bristol Motor Speedway as the defending race champion of the O'Reilly 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.
Busch dominated the 2008 race leading 145 of 203 laps in the Billy Ballew Motorsports entry on the 0.533-mile high banked oval race track.
The 24-year old driver has visited victory lane in each of the Top-Three NASCAR Touring Series posting one win, two top-five and three top-10 finishes in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, one win, five top-five, eight top-10 finishes and one pole in 10 Nationwide Series starts and nine NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts posting two wins, four top-five and six top-10 finishes.
Billy Ballew Motorsports has nine previous starts at Bristol Motor Speedway with one win, three top-five and five top-10 finishes at the Thunder Valley short track.
Richie Wauters, who in his tenure as crew chief for Billy Ballew Motorsports has led the team to ten of the 12 posted victories, will return as the crew chief on the No. 51 Miccosukee Resort Tundra for the remainder of the 2009 series season.
Wauters knows the how the steep 36° turns and 16°straightaways on the concrete Bristol Motor Speedway can play on the setup of the truck.
"Concrete is a rougher surface and is not heat sensitive," Wauters continued. "It doesn't change from day to night. The track gets black with the more rubber down on it making the truck tighter so we anticipate for that in our set up. I don't know if the softer right side tire should have an overall effect on the grip. It may play into a different pit strategy of pitting twice if the tires wear out. We might have to make two pit stops for tires instead of the usual one and done."
