Ballew making inroads toward two-truck team (cont'd)

At a Toyota test Thursday at New Smyrna Speedway, Ballew said he'd already figured out a couple puzzle pieces for his two-Tundra team.

For one, he's hired Kevin "Cowboy" Starland, a series veteran with a winning pedigree, as one of his crew chiefs. And he's discussed air travel arrangements with fellow owner James Finch that will allow Almirola to possibly contest full seasons in both the Truck and Cup series.

Almirola recently announced he would run Finch's No. 09 car in the Cup Series.

"I'd like to think how Aric ran in our trucks helped him get the ride with James, but then again James and I are good friends, he's been very helpful in everything he's done [for Ballew] and we talk on a daily basis," Ballew said. "I pushed for Aric to have that opportunity because we didn't have a sponsor and I wanted to make sure he was taken care of, was able to race.

"We also have an agreement that we can run all the Truck races if we can get the funding and fly back and forth and whatever we have to do to make it work. And that was the whole goal. James is more than willing because Aric's No. 1 goal was to run for a Truck championship, provided we have the money.

"Seat time's seat time so it'll all be helpful and hopefully those guys will be good and maybe there's some stuff we can learn on our end that'll help them on their end."

Almirola and Spencer Wauters, a Super Late Model driver whose father is Ballew's long-time crew chief Richie Wauters, tested at New Smyrna "because Michael's in Dubai for that 24-hour sports car race," Ballew said. "Bobby Kennedy [MWR operations director] has been very helpful and Richie and I are going to meet with them on the competition stuff."

Ballew attempted his first Truck race in 1996 and ran partial schedules, with several seasons of attempts with no starts, before his first full season in 2002. Shane Hmiel earned Ballew his first win as an owner, at Las Vegas in 2004. In 2005, Busch won three times in Ballew's No. 15 truck, the first of 16 career wins Busch scored in Ballew's equipment.

Ballew's systematic building process resulted in third- and second-place finishes in the owners' standings the past two seasons, both with the No. 51 that was driven by several drivers, but with Busch scoring most of its points.

"Me and [Waltrip] both said we both have a lot to lose," Ballew said. "Because he wants to prove that he can run very competitive and I believe in him 100 percent, and so does my guys. It's kinda like he said, 'The trucks have proven how competitive they are so I've got as much to lose if I go and don't run good in them, then we've got a problem.'

"So I guess the whole point is we're both very confident that we can be successful. We've already proven to be successful with Aric."

Ballew said it was yet to be determined which crew chief would work with which driver, and despite both trucks being decaled as 51s at the test, "all of our stuff is the same, whether it's the 15 or the 51. We proved that at Talladega at the end of [last] year when basically Aric won the race -- Kyle [Busch] won it, but on the last lap Aric was probably better and Kyle credited Aric for that win.

"Aric didn't run with us until the middle of the year and he did everything but win, he's a great guy and a very big part of our [team]."