(High Sierra Photo)

While Dorothy and Toto may be searching for the Wizard of Oz, 20-year-old Kyle Krisiloff is searching for a good finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race to be held at Kansas Speedway Saturday afternoon. The driver of the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports Chevy competes at the 1.5-mile facility for the second time after a 2005 appearance in the ARCA Series event.

Krisiloff and team head to Kansas trying to build off one of their better weekends at Milwaukee. After running in the top-15 in both practice sessions and securing their best starting spot of 2006, an 11th, the No. 15 crew is ready to regain some of their winning ways. Crew chief Richie Wauters returns to the No. 15 after leading the organization’s second entry for the past couple weeks.

“I’m pretty pleased with how we’ve come around and how we performed at Milwaukee last week,” said the third generation driver. “It’s the best we’ve been this season and I hope we can continue to build on that. As far as Kansas goes, we’ve been building a new truck and this will be the first race for it, so hopefully we should do well with it. Kansas is a place that is so much like Texas and Charlotte and after having mixed success at those places, I hope we can have something better for here. It will be nice to have Richie back with us and see if we can become a contender for a top-finish for Billy Ballew Motorsports.”

Krisiloff’s ARCA experience produced a second place finish for the youngster from Indianapolis. “Last year, I started third and finished second in the ARCA race,” Krisiloff said. “I came from seven seconds behind to finishing only a second behind after the leader suffered some problems. A few more laps and I could’ve picked up the victory which would’ve been nice heading there this weekend.”

In last year’s event, Billy Ballew Motorsports called upon racing veteran John Andretti to pilot the No. 15 Chevrolet, the sixth different driver to take the reigns. Andretti started at the rear of the field, due to switching steering boxes during impound. Andretti moved the machine all the way to the third position before a loose condition hindered his progress and dropped him to ninth place at the conclusion of the race. Upon entering the garage, the crew noticed the right rear tire was flat, most likely the cause of the loose condition.

The O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 gets underway at 3:00 p.m. EST Saturday afternoon from the Kansas Speedway. The race will be broadcast live on SPEED Channel, MRN Radio and XM Satellite Radio.