By Jared Turner – SceneDaily Staff Writer  -

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Billy Ballew is the quintessential NCWTS Owner 

Billy Ballew’s Billy Ballew Motorsports NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team has 17 victories in its history.

In a series featuring burly pickup trucks and hard-nosed drivers unafraid to push the limits, you might say that Billy Ballew is the quintessential NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team owner.
 
Low on sponsorship dollars but high on passion for the sport and his teams, Ballew has been forced to dig deep into his pockets on more than one occasion over the years to keep his Billy Ballew Motorsports organization afloat.
 
In that way, he isn’t different from many of his fellow team owners in NASCAR’s No. 3 division. That which sets Ballew apart is how much his teams have managed to accomplish with relatively little since entering the Truck ranks on a part-time basis in 1996.
 
In contrast to the roughly 75-employee Kevin Harvick Inc. organization of defending series champion Ron Hornaday, for example, Billy Ballew Motorsports employs fewer than 20 people. And those people do many jobs.
 
Take Richie Wauters, crew chief on BMM’s No. 51 truck. Wauters is also the organization’s general manager and competition director.
 
It’s not surprising then that the 50-year-old Ballew very casually says, “We don’t really go a lot by titles.”
 
“It’s everybody, they give 120 percent, not 100, not 110,” Ballew says. “Everybody on this race team works and does whatever it takes to be successful, and we’re also very prideful and love running up front. And if you look at our trucks, the way that they’re prepared, … our stuff is just as nice as any Cup car that you’re going to go look at in the shop. We spend our money not on the lavish things [but] on the race vehicles that we have to spend.”
 
Ballew spends most of his time during the season away from the team’s Mooresville, N.C., shop and at home in Blairsville, Ga., with his 12-year-old son.
 
“The guys are so good at what they do, I don’t have to be there,” he says. “I have one deal, and that’s trying for us to keep the money for us to race with. That’s my job. I don’t have to worry about the race car. I don’t have to worry about it being prepared. I don’t have to worry about them showing up because they all show up.”
 
A Georgia native who made his living owning and operating a handful of car dealerships in his home state for some 25 years, Ballew made his first foray into racing by sponsoring a dirt-track car at Georgia’s Dixie Speedway.
 
In 1994, he bought two Cup series cars that were retooled as entries for the Automobile Racing Club of America Series and finished third at Atlanta Motor Speedway in his first start with driver Mark Gibson.
 
“I was line, hook and sinker then,” Ballew says. “I thought that was really, really cool.”
 
Billy Ballew Motorsports made its Truck debut at Bristol Motor Speedway in 1996 with Gibson as the driver, but it wasn’t until 2004, with driver Shane Hmiel, that the organization secured the funding to run a full season. Even then, not all of the races were covered.
 
Hmiel gave the organization its first win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 25, 2004, and finished 13th in the standings on the heels of 10 top-10s.
 
“We got through that whole year basically without any solid foundation,” Ballew says. “I don’t really know how we made it, to be honest, but we did make it and we run better than we’d ever run.”
 
The next year, a 20-year-old Kyle Busch become the primary driver of the organization’s lone entry after being invited by Wauters to take part in a test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
 
Busch won in his first two appearances in the truck and snared another victory late in the year to make it three wins in 11 starts.
 
“The rest of it has just kind of evolved,” Ballew says.
 
Sixteen of Ballew’s 17 wins as an owner have come with Busch as the two have teamed up for a part-time schedule in each of the last five seasons. Other drivers to make multiple starts for Ballew over that stretch include Denny Hamlin, Kenny Wallace and Aric Almirola.
 
Now, however, Busch, who didn’t accept payment from Ballew for his services, is leaving to compete for his own Kyle Busch Motorsports team that he’s bringing to the series in 2010.
 
“I love Billy do death, and he has done a great deal for the Camping World Truck Series, and we’ve been trying to keep him alive and in business because he’s done a lot to just let me drive his truck,” Busch says. “I didn’t take any money for it or anything like that, and we looked at it, and I earned him some pretty good keep, and I’m proud of that. To say that I’ve actually not taken a dime from the whole program was cool to me.”
 
Miccosukee Resorts and Gaming, which has sponsored Busch the last two seasons, is following the 24-year-old to his new KBM entry.
 
So Ballew needs sponsorship to continue fielding two teams, but it’s not as if this predicament is anything new to him.
 
Ballew says there have been plenty of times he has borrowed money or taken his own money to keep his team on the track.
 
“If it was for financial gains I would have stayed in the car business and would have been a lot more financially [well] off, but you only live once,” he says. “ … And I’ve only got my 12-year-old son that’s the most important thing in the world to me. So it’s not like that I’m tied down from a marriage standpoint or anything like that. He’s number one, and racing’s second. And what little bit of personal life you have after that point, it’s sad, but it comes third. It takes third place, so I’m not getting any younger.

“I’m not really worried about retirement. I’m not worried about getting old; I’m already old.”
 
Ballew believes that bright days are still ahead for his organization, which plans to field at least one truck in 2010 with Almirola. Ballew fell 73 points shy of an owners title in 2009 with his No. 51 truck that was shared by Busch, Almirola and others.

He’s used to getting more out of less as an owner.
 
“As long as it’s fun and my guys are getting taken care of and we’re having fun doing it, I’d do it till the day that I drop,” he says.

By Jeff Hood | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com    http://www.racintoday.com/archives/12490

Steven Wallace doesn’t yet own the hardware that comes with a NASCAR championship.

But he does have the upper-hand on his father, 1989 Sprint Cup champion Rusty Wallace, when it comes to Snowball Derby titles.

Steven Wallace scored his victory in the famous 300-lap Super Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway in 2004.

That’s a feat that Wallace’s dad and two uncles, Kenny and Mike Wallace, never managed to achieve.

“The Snowball Derby is really a big race for a lot of people,” Steven Wallace said. “I’ve always been really interested in this race.

“My dad used to run it and my whole family did. I’ve always liked coming down here. To win it is a huge deal.

“It’s the biggest short-track race of the year. It’s like the Super Bowl. It’s fun. You can come down here and have a good time. You can race hard.”

A veteran in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, Wallace is accustomed to racing against the same competition on a weekly basis.

The Derby attracts top competiton from all across the country. But many of those drivers have never raced against one another.

“I think there’s just such a wide variance of different types of drivers,” Wallace said. “A lot of these guys have never raced together before. They all show up at this one big race.

“They all get to beating and banging and get their stuff torn up. And then there’s tire management. Tires get wore out real bad. There’s a lot of stuff. There are a lot of variables.

“It’s a fun race, but it’s always been kind of a rough one.”

Legendary crew chief Richie Wauters called the shots during Wallace’s breakthrough win five years ago.

The duo hopes to rekindle that same winning magic in Sunday’s 42nd annual Snowball Derby.

“For sure, it helps coming down here with Richie,” Wallace said. “It’s our sixth or seventh trip down here to the Snowball together.

“I met Richie through my uncle Kenny (Wallace). Richie’s like family for me. I’ve known him forever and we get along real good.

“Besides that, he’s damn smart with race cars, especially these short track cars. He helps to make them seem to run good.”

Sunday’s Derby field will be headlined by several NASCAR drivers, including Kyle Busch.

But it suits Wallace just fine to race against Regular Joe Saturday night racers.

“I have every intention of smoking (the other NASCAR drivers) pretty hard, to be honest,” Wallace said with a sly smile. “I think our car is pretty good. I race against those guys every week. They’re cool.

“But I like coming down here and racing with these boys a lot better. I’ve always had a lot of fun racing with them and have got to know a lot of people down here.

“It’s always just a good time to come and race here. These guys are hard racers, man. It’s real fun to be able to race with them.”

– Jeff Hood can be reached at jhood@racintoday.com