NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Overview
Event: Strat 200 (Race 2 of 23), 134 Laps – 30/30/74; 201Miles
Location: Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway (1.5-mile tri-oval)
Date/Broadcast: Feb. 21, 2020 at 9 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1, MRN and Sirius/XM NASCAR 90
What You Need to Know
- Owner-driver Kyle Busch will be behind the wheel of the No. 51 Cessna Tundra for this week’s NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series event at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway as part of his five-race schedule for 2020. The other four races on Busch’s schedule this season are March 14 at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, March 20 at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway, March 27 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth and May 30 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
- Busch ranks first all-time among Truck Series drivers in wins (56), driver rating (122.83) and average finish (6.8) and second in laps led (6,981). “Rowdy” has won a remarkable 37.3% (56/150) of the Gander Trucks races he has entered and finished first or second in 54.7% (82/150)
- At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Busch has three Truck Series starts, with two wins from the pole in spring of 2018 and 2019. He has two top-five and three top-10 finishes with an average starting position of 1.7 and an average finish of 3.7. He also has two Xfinity Series wins and one Cup Series win at his home track.
- In 2019, the No. 51 team claimed six wins, three poles, 15 top-five and 17 top-10 finishes with seven different drivers en route to the 2019 Gander Trucks owner championship. Busch was behind the wheel for five of those wins, going five-for-five in his Truck Series starts in 2019.
- The No. 51 team is led by Danny Stockman in 2020. Stockman called the shots for Austin Dillon’s championship efforts in both the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series (2011) and the NASCAR Xfinity Series (2013) and has experience as a crew chief in all three national series. In Dillon’s Gander Trucks championship season, the pair totaled two wins, five poles, 10 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes. The majority of Stockman’s experience atop the pit box has come in the Xfinity Series, where his drivers have recorded seven wins, 19 poles, 80 top-five and 148 top-10 finishes across 209 starts from 2012 to 2018. At Las Vegas, Stockman has one Truck Series start, eight Xfinity Series starts and three Cup Series starts.
- Chris Showalter, the truck chief on the No. 51, will be celebrating his 600th NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Showalter has been a crew member in some capacity at every Truck Series race since the inception of the series at Phoenix in 1995.
- Textron Aviation Inc. is the leading general aviation authority and home to the Beechcraft, Cessna and Hawker brands, which account for more than half of all general aviation aircraft flying. For more than 90 years, the Textron Aviation brands have represented unrivaled innovation, performance and leadership in the industry, offering an unmatched value proposition rooted in the total ownership experience. Leveraging unparalleled speed-to-market, Textron Aviation provides the most versatile and comprehensive business and general aviation product portfolio in the world through five principal lines of business: business jets, general aviation and special mission turboprop aircraft, high performance piston aircraft, military trainer and defense aircraft and a complete global customer service organization. Textron Aviation has delivered more than 250,000 aircraft in over 143 countries. Its broad range of products include such best-selling aircraft as Citation business jets, King Air and Caravan turboprops and T-6 military trainer aircraft, all of which are backed by the industry’s most capable global service network. For more information, visit www.txtav.com.
No. 51 Tundra – Las Vegas Motor Speedway Advance Page Two
Kyle Busch, Driver Q&A
Are you looking forward to your first Truck Series start of 2020?
“I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the Cessna Tundra for the first time in 2020 — the goal is to go five-for-five again and have another perfect Truck Series season. Appreciate Cessna coming back now for their fourth season sponsoring my races in the Truck Series. Even though the truck number and the sponsor are the same this year, things will be a little bit different than last year. I’ll be working with Stockman (Danny, crew chief) for the first time, and working with a new spotter (Andy Houston). With how the schedule on Friday works out we’ll have just one practice session to get our communication down. Running these five races early on in the season will also be a good opportunity for me to work side-by-side with our two young guys, Eckes (Christian) and Lessard (Raphael), that are racing full-time for a championship. Being able to compare notes and see what they are experiencing and what their feedback is compared to mine at the same time on the same track. Just trying to help accelerate their learning curves as drivers, being there to answer questions in the debrief after practice and also working with KBM as a whole to give them my feedback in an effort to make our trucks the best they can be and work towards getting both of the young guys in the playoffs this year.”
Kyle Busch Career Highlights
- Busch has a total of 150 NGROTS starts and is ranked first in NGROTS wins (56), second in laps led (6,981) and fourth in poles (22). Busch has a total of 98 top-five and 119 top-10 finishes with an average start of 7.2 and an average finish of 6.8.
- The 34-year-old driver has now won 37.33% (56/150) of the NGROTS races he has entered and finished first or second in 54.67% (82/150).
- Busch stands alone as the leader in all-time career wins in NASCAR’s national touring series with 208 total victories. He has earned 56 NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) wins, 96 NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) wins, and 56 NGROTS wins.
- In August of 2010, Busch made history when he won the NGOTS, NXS and NCS races at Bristol Motor Speedway, becoming the only driver to sweep all three of NASCAR’s top three series at one track on the same weekend. He then repeated the feat in August of 2017.
Kyle Busch’s No. 51 Cessna Tundra:
KBM-060: The No. 51 Cessna team will race KBM-060 for Friday’s Strat 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This chassis was last used by Todd Gilliland in the fall race at Las Vegas in 2019. He piloted it to a fifth-place finish.
| KBM-060 Performance Profile | |||||||
| Starts | Wins | Average Start | Average Finish | Laps Led |
| 3 | 0 | 5.7 | 8.0 | 0 |
KBM Notes of Interest
- KBM drivers have collected three wins (Erik Jones 2014, Kyle Busch 2018 and 2019), four poles (Kyle Busch 2018, Noah Gragson 2018 and Christian Eckes 2019), 10 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. They have earned a collective average starting position of 8.1 and average finish of 11.7 and have led 422 laps.
- KBM holds the NGROTS records for most career wins (75) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). In addition to collecting a series-record seven Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers; Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).
Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 Toyota Tundra 2020 NGOTS Box Score:
| Date | Site | Driver | Start | Finish | Laps | Laps Led | Status | Owner Pts./Pos. |
| 2/14 | Daytona | Riley Herbst | 1 | 12 | 106/106 | 21 | Running | 41/3rd |
