NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

In fact, it’s been full speed ahead ever since the team announced its plans to field two full-time Toyota Tundras in the 2010 Truck Series on December 11: the No. 18 Miccosukee Resort & Gaming Tundra to be shared by owner/driver Busch and rising Truck Series star Brian Ickler and the No. 56 Tundra for 20-year-old second-year Truck racer Tayler Malsam.

Director of Competition Rick Ren, who joined the new team after guiding Ron Hornaday and the No. 33 Kevin Harvick Inc. team to the Truck Series title in 2009, is overseeing the process.

“The biggest challenge I’ve got right now is the personnel stuff,” said Ren just prior to the holidays. “Let alone just trying to hire the people that work on the race vehicles, there is also getting some office people in place. It’s a lot of just searching for the right person to fill the right position.”

While it’s a daunting task, Ren admits he’s in somewhat of a position of advantage as there are a lot of quality people to choose from given the economic difficulties many NASCAR teams have faced.

“There are quite a few interested candidates, let’s put it that way,” he said. “There are a lot of good people to pick from. There are some people out of jobs for one reason or another, whether they needed to be in the sport or not, but there are some really good people that just got gobbled up in a sponsorship problem or cutback problems, so there are some really good people available in all areas.”

Two key hires will be the crew chiefs for the team’s pair of Tundras. That’s a position Ren knows intimately, as he has been a respected Truck Series crew chief for many years and earned both the 2007 and ’09 titles in that position with Hornaday and KHI. However, Ren admits that his experience might make the decision process a bit more difficult for him.

“By myself kind of being somewhat successful as a crew chief, I’m probably being almost a little too critical about who we hire,” he explains. “But I think when we get this all done, hopefully, we’re all pulling the rope in the same direction.”

That will be extremely important – especially over the next month-and-a-half – to the team’s future success, as there is a lot to do and not much time to do it.

“January is going to be very hectic for everyone here,” Ren says. “I don’t believe we have a vehicle that is prepared to race right now. We’ve got a lot to do, let alone getting people in here and hoping that you don’t have personality conflicts and people stepping on people’s toes. They all have to go gangbusters in one direction when they get here.”

Motivation shouldn’t be a problem for any employees of the new team when you look at the Truck Series record compiled by key players Busch and Ren over the past three seasons. Busch has amassed 12 wins, 25 top-five results and 33 top 10s in 44 total Truck Series starts since 2007, while Ren guided Hornaday to 16 victories, 42 top fives and 60 top 10s along with the two championships in 75 races from ’07 through ’09.

Ren is particularly excited about being reunited with Toyota. He was crew chief for a Tundra team in Toyota’s first year in the Truck Series in 2004 and worked for another Toyota team in the Truck Series prior to joining KHI. He’s seen considerable progress in the Toyota program while he was away.

“I can see a lot more engineering from where we were when I was involved with them to begin with,” Ren says. “I’m pretty excited about that facet of it. I can see they have really stepped up their engineering side of racing, the equipment we have access to and the personnel we have access to, so I’m really excited about when we get some of the inventory in place here and can start taking advantage of the equipment they have. They can help us accelerate this program.”

By the end of January, Ren expects the team to have everything ready to go for the season opener at Daytona and be well on its way to having everything built for Round 2 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 12. He also expects that his new boss will be challenging for the victory under the lights at Daytona.

“I would like to think that we could put ourselves in that position at Daytona,” he said. “He has the ability to do it if he gets himself into position on the racetrack. We all know how Daytona and Talladega races go. You can be the fastest guy all day long, but if you’re not in the right place on the last lap, the end result is not going to be what you wanted. I just believe that we will be able to put ourselves in a position to win at Daytona with Kyle.”

As for the team’s pair of talented young drivers, Ren believes both have the potential for greatness. It’s just a matter of helping both of them develop their skills.

“Kyle put it best at our announcement,” Ren says. “A realistic goal would be to see if you could get either one of those young guys in Victory Lane one time this year. We need to start out with those guys trying to finish in the top 10 every race, boom, boom, boom, for about five or six races, so they understand the part about finishing a race. You’ve got to run all the laps to get the experience.

“If we can get the team to gel with the crew chief and with the driver and get those guys going after the first five races, then we need to be focused on trying to run in the top five. I think those are realistic goals.”

And if things weren’t busy enough already for the startup team, they’d be running a third Tundra for 2008 Truck Series champion Johnny Benson if Ren and Busch had it their way. Benson was present and accounted for at the team unveiling in December.

“Right now, we are trying to obtain sponsorship so we can put Johnny in a third truck,” said Ren. “Johnny’s working on it; we’ve got people working on it. We’re gearing up right now to run two full teams, but in the back of my mind, I’m also putting things in place in case we have to snap our fingers and go to three teams.

“In the meantime, I think Johnny will be an asset, because we have a couple of young guys on the roster to drive. Johnny can help in the interim with maybe a little coaching. That’s where Johnny fits into this program right at the moment.”

There are a lot of moving parts to be sure, and there is much work to be done for Ren and the rest of the team. But Ren is clearly grateful to Busch for the opportunity and plans to make the most of it.

“I think it’s one of those things that you work really hard in your career to just be yourself, but to be the best you can be,” he concludes. “I’m older now. I guess you’ve got to say you’re always getting closer to the end of your career as you get older. This is a very rewarding situation for myself, but it’s also flattering at the same time.

“I think to have worked very hard and then to get the opportunity to do something like this is kind of a breath of fresh air. It’s like, ‘Man, I’ve got the opportunity to try to help a young man fulfill whatever his dreams are.’ Just to be a part of it, it’s a great opportunity and I’m glad to be a part of it. It’s going to be a lot of work; it’s a huge challenge and a huge undertaking. And it’s just rewarding.”