Almirola Collects Eighth Top-Five of 2010 Season

Martinsville, Va. (October 23, 2010) – Aric Almirola and the No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota team collected their eighth top-five of the season during Saturday’s Kroger 200 at the .526-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway after finishing fifth.   It’s also the team’s ninth consecutive top-10 finish as the team continues to race for the championship.  Almirola maintained his second spot in the point standings after Saturday’s.  He trails leader Todd Bodine by 282 points, but has an 88 point lead over third place, Johnny Sauter.

A short race, 200 laps around the half-mile facility, teams have no opportunities to waste. The No. 51 truck team, led by crew chief Richie Wauters, took advantage of every caution, and one long green run, to make the most out of their day. 

Starting in the 15^th position, Almirola knew that the start of the race was important. He wanted to quickly move into the top 10 and eventually into the top five to stay out of trouble.  Early race cautions, three before Lap 50, gave the team the opportunity to work on a “tight” condition that Almirola was battling inside the truck.  They came down pit road twice during the opening 50 circuits for handling adjustments.  It didn’t help advance track position, but it did give Almirola a competitive truck for the final 150 laps.

The race went green for a long run after the team took their final pit stop for tires and fuel on Lap 90.  The long run helped Almirola move from 16^th to sixth before a caution on Lap 147.  The final 50 laps were once again full of caution periods, but Almirola was able to race into the fifth spot by Lap 164 just behind Jason White.  Almirola battled White for numerous laps, but raced clean as the leader’s bumped fenders, bumpers and everything in between battling for the top spots.  Almirola was smooth, and even as the race slowed for several cautions in the final 20 laps, was able to bring home a clean truck in fifth.

“We were tight early in the day, but the guys did a great job of making the adjustments early,” said Almirola.  “We had the long run in the middle of the race and the truck really liked that.  We grabbed a bunch of spots and just moved right to the front. We got into fifth and raced hard with Jason White for a bunch of laps.”

“The final cautions didn’t help us.  I wanted it to stay green for another long run, we were better then.  But, it’s a clean truck, and it’s another top-five finish for us.  I’m excited about the final four races.  We have great trucks ready to go at the shop and we’re racing really strong right now.”

Almirola and the No. 51 team will next compete in Saturday’s Mountain Dew 250 at the Talladega Superspeedway.  The race will be televised live on SPEED Channel at 3:30 p.m. (ET).

Jason Bowles Scores Top-20 in First Martinsville Outing

MARTINSVILLE, VA. (October 23, 2010) – In his first outing at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Jason Bowles showed veteran prowess as he overcame several obstacles in route to a top-20 finish.  In typical Martinsville fashion, bumping and banging was the norm throughout the 200 lap event. Bowles, along with the No. 15 Billy Ballew Motorsports team, weren’t immune to the melee. On track incidents left Bowles with damaged fenders, quarter panels and tires. Despite the carnage, the No. 15 team played a near-perfect pit strategy that had Bowles in contention to capture a top-10. But, as was the norm, a flat tire on Bowles’ truck foiled the plan in the final 20 laps. Still, Bowles rallied to finish in 18^th-place.

Bowles qualified his BBM Tundra in 16^th-place. At the start of the event, Bowles reported that the truck was “way too tight off the corners.” Nonetheless, he pedaled past three trucks before the yellow flag halted the pace on Lap 39. The majority of the field decided to pit during the caution period, but the No. 15 team elected to stay on the track. They planned on making one stop for tires and fuel, and needed to wait until Lap 50 before calling the driver down pit lane for service.  As a result, Bowles moved into third-place for the restart.

The race went back to green on Lap 58.  Even on older tires, Bowles held strong in the top-five and held onto fourth-place until the next yellow flag waved, Lap 58. Since the caution period fell under the team’s preferred pit stop window, they called Bowles into the pits for service.  The team changed all four tires, topped off the fuel cell and made a wedge adjustment to loosen up the truck. After returning to the track, Bowles ran over debris that littered the speedway.  Bowles was unsure if his tires were punctured and decided to be safe instead of sorry.  He returned to pit road and had the team change his left-side tires before the race went green.  He rejoined the field in the 30^th-place.

Bowles began blasting through the field when the race went green on Lap 61. He picked up 10 positions by Lap 90, when the next caution flag waved.  Bowles remained on the track and inherited sixth-place after several trucks made pit stops.

Green flag action returned on Lap 99. Shortly after the restart, Bowles began racing with Ron Hornaday for position. The trucks made contact, which peeled back the left-front fender of Bowles’ Tundra. Fortunately it was not rubbing the tire, but the damage disrupted its handling. He fell back to 16^th-place before a caution flag slowed the action on Lap 148. The team called Bowles into the pits, where the team performed routine service and added Bare Bond to the injured fender. Bowles went back on the track in 20^th-place.

On Lap 155, the race went green. Bowles piloted his way into the top-15 and was running lap times consistent with the leaders. He moved into 12^th-place and was closing in on the top-10 when another truck slammed into his left-rear quarter panel. The incident caused Bowles’ tire to blow.  Luckily, a caution flag waved and allowed his team to change the tire without losing any laps, but the exchange left him in 23^rd-place when he left pit road.

The race went green again on Lap 187.  Bowles continued to do what he had done all race long and moved up the leader board. He climbed up five positions before running out of laps.  He finished in 18^th-place.

“It was definitely a top-10 truck we had today,” said Bowles after the event. “We fought back all day long.  It seemed like every time things were going our way, something would happen and derail us.  We never gave up, though. I felt like our truck was better than our finish showed, but I’m really proud of what this team accomplished.  There were several times that we could have let the race get the best of us, but we weren’t about to quit.

“This was my first time working with this Billy Ballew Motorsports team.  There’s usually an adjustment period with new team members and it takes to build chemistry, but we really worked well together. For us to come away with a top-20, especially under these circumstances, says a lot about us.”

MOORESVILLE, NC (October 18, 2010) - Billy Ballew Motorsports announced today that it has signed current NASCAR K&N West Series champion Jason Bowles to race the No.15 BBM Toyota Tundra at Martinsville this weekend.

Bowles spent the last three seasons in the K&N West Series where he won nine races, ten poles, rookie-of-the-year, and last season captured the championship.  His 4.2 average finish in 2009 is the best in series history since 1995 among drivers with 13 or more starts in a full season.  

“Really can’t wait to get in the truck and go,” said Bowles, a native of Ontario, California.  ”Billy gave me a chance to test last week with the team and Aric (Almirola) and it went well, so he decided to give me a shot to go racing at Martinsville.”

Billy Ballew Motorsports sits second in the driver championship standings with Aric Almirola in the 51 truck, who has won two races this season.  

“We have a great team here with the No.15 operation,” said Ballew, one of the most successful NASCAR Truck Series owners of all time.  ”I do this to win races and championships, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.  Jason is someone I feel like I can put in this truck and watch him get up to speed right away and run at the front.  With Aric trying to close the championship gap, it’s going to help having a solid teammate out there.”

Bowles is looking to follow up with his championship year in the west with an opportunity in one of NASCAR’s upper tiers.  Driving for BBM is exactly the type of opportunity he was looking for in a seasoned team with excellent equipment.

“This sport is tough, I worked really hard to win the West Series last year and I think even harder this year trying to get the chance to move up to Trucks or Nationwide cars.  Billy knows I’m going to give 110% to make this work for both of us and I appreciate him believing in me to get the job done,” Bowles said.  ”I eat and sleep racing – I have my whole life from go-karts all the way through to today, so that’s not going to change now.”

Bowles made his Truck Series debut in Las Vegas finishing 16^th for Germain Racing, with the goal of gaining experience, something he did running all night on the lead lap.

“There’s a lot to learn in this series and there’s nothing like racing to learn right away,” said Bowles. “It was my first time in a truck and first time on a mile and a half track.  Nobody is really going to help you understand things like side-drafting or how important momentum is in these trucks if you don’t experience it on the track.”

This season Bowles has run in a variety of NASCAR races, most recently in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.  In three Canadian events he finished third, second and was leading in Montreal on the last lap when he was unceremoniously punted into the tire barriers on the last corner.

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Ballew Team Improving with Each Martinsville Performance

Looks to Build on Sixth-Place Run from Last March

 MOORESVILLE, N.C. (October 18, 2010) – Aric Almirola and the No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota team wants nothing more than to finish the season with another win. The Kroger 200 at the .526-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway this weekend is shaping up to be a perfect place for that to happen.   Since making his first NCWTS start in 2006, Almirola has only gotten better. He followed up an 18^th-place finish in his inaugural run with 16^th, 12^th and 6^th-place finishes respectively.  The team recently tested at Ace Speedway and feel confident heading into the weekend.

In seven previous starts at Martinsville, the No. 51 team has achieved three top-10s, with a best finish of fourth-place (Kyle Busch, October 2008).

Almirola is currently second in the NCWTS point standings.  He and the team ride a streak of eight consecutive top-10 finishes which began in July at Pocono Raceway.

Almirola Comments on Martinsville Speedway:

“You go to Martinsville expecting a rough race.  There’s really only a couple of ways to pass other trucks and it usually involves pushing them out of the way or nudging them.  It’s a short, little race track and there’s not much room to get around them, no matter how fast you are. It’s not like a Kansas or California-type track, where there are multiple grooves and it’s easy to go high or low to make a pass. There’s really only one lane at Martinsville and if someone ahead of you is in it, you’ll probably need to give them a shove to get by.

“As a driver, it’s a tough balance between staying patient and being aggressive at Martinsville. If you get stuck in the middle of the field, you’re going to have to be pretty aggressive to get to the front, but you can’t get so crazy that you get caught up in a wreck. You’ve also got to take care of your brakes and not use up too much of your truck early in the race.   There’s no magic formula. It helps to have a spotter that can keep you calm and focused when you’re upset or being careless, or tell you that it’s time to go when you need to kick it in high gear.

“Starting off the race with good track position makes all the difference in the world at Martinsville. It’s so hard to make up positions on the track. Qualifying is so important. A good starting spot makes race day so much easier. It’s a lot easier to stay up front and protect your position than it is to fight your way through the field.

“Martinsville is one of those tracks that I feel like I learn more and more each time I race there. We finished sixth in March. We’re building on that performance and coming back with a few changes. Hopefully we’ll be a little bit better and can win our third race of the year.”