Busch's success a boon for independent Ballew team

Running third with 26 laps to go, Kyle Busch had one hand on the wheel and the other holding up his window net.

For a dozen laps, there he was, wheeling his truck around Atlanta Motor Speedway's high banks one-handed, half-sideways. NASCAR black-flagged him for the net flapping out his window. Just as Busch was planning to serve his penalty, a yellow came out due to an accident on the track. It saved Busch, and he ultimately passed Ron Hornaday to win the Craftsman Truck Series race for hometown owner Billy Ballew.

Ballew and Busch

Billy Ballew Motorsports

2007 Driver Lineup

Driver	Starts	Avg. Finish
Bill Lester	15	20.1
Kyle Busch	11	13.7
Shane Sieg	3	15.7
Kelly Sutton	3	28.7
J.R. Norris	2	18.0
Andrew Myers	2	32.0
Kenny Wallace	1	13.0
Aric Almirola	1	17.0
Denny Hamlin	1	19.0
Buddy Lazier	1	24.0
Paul Menard	1	33.0
Nate Monteith	1	33.0

• Busch CTS: 2007 | Career

"Impossible, and he did it," Hornaday later said of Busch's one-handed driving. "I seen it for eight laps. He had that thing sideways with one hand. That was awesome."

The next week at Texas, Busch rolled off fifth in Ballew's truck and had a dominant machine, leading 27 of the first 70 laps. But then his engine expired.

The week after that was Phoenix, and Busch again bettered the eventual 2007 champion Hornaday by beating everyone off pit road when it counted and leading a total of 42 laps for his second victory in a three-race span.

And finally at Homestead, Busch appeared ready to cap off his November run with a third victory in four races when he led 69 of 138 laps and held the lead at the end of the race. Problem was, a late-race crash forced a green-white-checkered finish. The extension gave Johnny Benson the time he needed to pass Busch as Busch slid into the wall trying to hang on to a loose truck -- this time with both hands. He managed, however, to finish second.

Four races: Two victories, one runner-up.

"Momentum breeds momentum, and it seems like every time Kyle is part of our deal, he and Richie [Wauters, crew chief] and the guys just really click," said Ballew, whose independent team may be a rarity in NASCAR these days but is the norm in the Truck Series.

Billy Ballew Motorsports fielded an entry in all 25 races this past season, starting two trucks in 17 of them. Ballew used 12 different drivers.

Bill Lester ran the first 15 races of the season before he and the team parted ways. Otherwise, it was a hodge-podge of driver lineups for Ballew that included full-time Cup drivers like Paul Menard and Denny Hamlin, as well as little-knowns like Nate Monteith and J.R. Norris. Add to that former Indianapolis 500 winner and IRL champion Buddy Lazier's NASCAR debut at Las Vegas, and the term "independent" becomes glaring in Ballew's organization.

But no other independent can tout that it pulls Cup Series heavyweights from their multi-million-dollar ties and drops them in the seat of a truck based on late-night handshake agreements at local diners.

"I'm fortunate enough that big organizations like Hendrick Motorsports have allowed their Nextel Cup superstars to drive for us," Ballew said. "The Paul Menard deal was a Dale Earnhardt Inc. deal. It was an agreement we made with Richie Gilmore to run him in Martinsville and we had planned to run him a few more races later in the year. Me and Denny [Hamlin] were at a restaurant one night about three weeks before the fall Martinsville race and the conversation just came up. He said, 'Billy, Martinsville is coming up. We ought to run the second truck.' So I said, 'Well let's just do it.' (Continued)