Last Two World Stock Car Festival Winners, Bell & Coughlin Join KBM Truck Roster For 2016
(Special from Kyle Busch Motorsports)
Mooresville, North Carolina (Thursday, October 29, 2015): Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) announced today the 2016 driver lineup for its three-team operation in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Christopher Bell and William Byron will each compete full-time, while Cody Coughlin and Daniel Suarez will share the seat of the remaining entry, each competing in at least 10 races.
Additionally, the team announced that Byron will make his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut Nov. 13 in a fourth KBM entry at Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway.
Bell, a 20-year-old native of Norman, Okla., earned a top-five finish in his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut at Iowa Speedway in July and in just his third career start led 106 of 154 laps en route to victory at famed Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. The open-wheel dirt standout began his transition to pavement racing late in 2014 running Late Models for KBM, where in 19 career starts to date he has recorded six victories, including the prestigious Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway in Kinston earlier this year.
The 2013 USAC National Midget champion continues to be a force to be reckoned with on dirt, where he has scored six POWRI Midget wins, two USAC National Midget wins, one USAC Silver Crown win and also collected his second career World of Outlaws Sprint Car victory this season.
Bell’s Tundra will carry primary sponsorship from JBL, a division of HARMAN – the premier connected technologies company for automotive, consumer and enterprise markets.
Byron, a 17-year-old native of Charlotte, N.C., captured the 2015 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Championship and Rookie of the Year honors after producing four wins, three poles, 740 laps led, five top-five and 11 top-10 finishes across 14 starts. He picked up a victory at Greenville (S.C.) Pickens Speedway in just his second career start, earned the championship lead after a runner-up finish at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in the third race of the season and stayed at the top of the standings for the remainder of the season.
The NASCAR Next product is currently in his senior year at Charlotte (N.C.) Country Day School and also is enrolled in the Liberty University Online Academy. Byron has had a busy 2015 schedule on the track as well, in addition to his full-time campaign in the K&N Pro Series East, he finished fifth in his lone start in the K&N Pro Series West, made two ARCA Racing Series starts – where he led a race-high 120 laps in his series debut at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis before settling for a runner-up finish when the race was decided by fuel strategy. He also picked up a CARS Super Late Model Tour victory at Hickory Motor Speedway earlier this season and finished second in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown at South Boston Speedway.
Byron’s Tundra will carry primary sponsorship from Liberty University, the largest private, nonprofit university in the nation, the largest university in Virginia, and the largest Christian university in the world.
Coughlin, a 20-year-old native of Delaware, Ohio, made a pair of Truck Series starts this season, including his KBM debut in August at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, where he was on the verge of a top-10 finish before a late-race accident. He has competed part-time in the ARCA Racing Series the last two seasons, where he collected two poles (Chicagoland Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway), five top-five and 11 top-10 finishes across 17 starts, including a career-best second-place effort at Talladega Superspeedway this spring.
The Joe Gibbs Racing development driver’s roots run deep in the motorsports world, as the Coughlin family has produced countless victories and numerous championships across various divisions of NHRA competition. Cody decided to take a different path in racing and at a young age has already achieved success in stock cars. The talented youngster won the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Championship in 2013, and has recorded Late Model victories at prestigious tracks such as Indiana’s Winchester Speedway and Florida’s New Smyrna Speedway.
Suarez, a 23-year-old native of Monterrey, Mexico, has produced five top-five and eight top-10 finishes across nine Truck Series starts driving a partial schedule for KBM this season, highlighted by runner-up finishes at Dover (Del.) International Speedway in May and Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth in June. He also competes full-time in the NASCAR XFINITY Series for Joe Gibbs Racing, where he has compiled three poles, seven top-five and 15 top-10 finishes across 30 starts and leads the Rookie of the Year standings with three races remaining.
A graduate of the NASCAR Next and NASCAR Drive for Diversity programs, Suarez honed his skills in the NASCAR Mexico Series, where he collected 10 wins, 13 poles, 25 top-five and 34 top-10 finishes across 58 career starts from 2011 to 2014, and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, where he produced three wins, 12 top-five and 22 top-10 finishes across 43 starts from 2011 to 2014.
Suarez’s Tundra will carry primary sponsorship from ARRIS, a world leader in entertainment and communications technology.
Announcements for Coughlin’s sponsors as well as truck numbers and crew chiefs for all three teams are forthcoming.
