Busch finding his way in new ownership role

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Rick Ren wanted to see it in Kyle Busch's eyes.

"I tried to warn him," the director of competition at Kyle Busch Motorsports said. "But until you actually see how many checks that you actually have written, somebody can tell you all they want to tell you until you live it yourself. I could warn him, and ask him if he really wanted to do this. I wanted to see it in his eyes."

Busch

Ren saw what he was looking for, as evidenced by the two KBM haulers parked in the Camping World Truck Series garage for Friday night's scheduled season opener at Daytona International Speedway. For Busch, already a champion on the Nationwide circuit and a polarizing figure on the Sprint Cup tour, the birth of his namesake Truck program brought a new role -- boss -- and the headaches that go along with the title. The team's uniforms and pit boards showed up on race morning. Weather is playing havoc with construction of a new race shop. The entity that was supposed to serve as primary sponsor on one of the trucks, the Miccosukee tribe, bowed out weeks before the organization's debut.

Having fun yet, Kyle? Actually, yes he is.

"To be honest with you, it's a pain in the neck because I'm trying to sell my sponsorship, and it's hard on me trying to make sure that I don't have to have all that coming out of my pocket," Busch said. "But on the other part of it, when I got in that truck and fired it up and rolled out for the first time on the race track, I had a grin across my face as wide as it would go. It's a very, very cool feeling to drive your own equipment. To be in our own stuff, to have all the team and everybody that's worked so hard, and to know you're kind of in charge of all that, is pretty neat."

Busch will split one truck with Brian Ickler, with Tayler Malsam piloting the other. The glue to it all is Ren, a former crew chief on Ron Hornaday's championship-winning outfit at Kevin Harvick Inc., who has had a friendly relationship with Busch for years. Even though the two were working for competing teams and manufacturers, Ren would occasionally dispense setup advice, and Busch would sometimes drop by Ren's house. One day I'm going to start my own Truck team, Busch often told Ren, and you're going to run it.

It started as a joke. "Then it got serious," Ren said. (Continued)