Bill Davis feeling good as teams starting to perform (cont'd)

For Davis, who's been a perennial championship contender in the Truck Series, but who's struggled to find bright spots on the Sprint Cup side, equivalent to when Ward Burton won the 2002 Daytona 500; the Dover weekend was a welcome breath of fresh air.

"It's been a tough couple years on the Cup side, and we sure have had better cars than results -- but that's all past us," Davis said. "The trucks have run well -- we had a fabulous year with them last year -- but it is hard. We know we're capable of better."

It's been a season of distinct ups and downs for Davis, who in addition to operating at NASCAR's highest levels for the last 20 years, has also maintained his Bill Davis Trucking company in Arkansas and more recently, a growing cattle operation.

Each end of the 2008 season has a distinct "bang" for BDR -- with Davis' development driver Michael Annett starting the ARCA RE/MAX Series season with a victory at Daytona to back up his Talladega score last fall; and Speed making it to Dover's Victory Lane.

Countering the ups, as noted, have been the downs. Davis firmly believes that Benson would be leading the Truck Series' standings if he hadn't been "robbed on the restart at Charlotte, which was a bad call" when Benson was penalized for jumping a restart, and "certainly Kyle Busch wrecked [Benson] on the last lap at Martinsville on our way to second."

Davis always tells the truth, and even though he and Benson were on the receiving end of one of Busch's dopier moves this season, a "dive bomber attack" in Turn 3 at Martinsville on the last lap; Davis is securely on the list of Busch admirers.

"He's just a phenomenal talent," Davis said. "I mean, granted, he's sitting in great equipment with great bodies, great engines and great chassis -- and Steve Addington is obviously a great crew chief. But man, he is just. . .

"And it extends across all three series. He's in a great truck, and we'll take a little credit for our Triad company [Triad Racing Development, which builds all the Toyota race truck chassis and engines], but Billy Ballew has got a great team under him.

"Same scenario in the Nationwide deal -- but he is just a phenomenal talent. Does he race a little hard and make a little mistake every once in a while? Yeah, but who hasn't?

"Did the deal at Martinsville p--- me off? Sure, it p---ed me off because we're trying to win a championship, but all that said, he's a great talent and very deserving of his success."

After failing to post finishes equal to how well Blaney had run at Daytona and Martinsville, and after qualifying on the outside of the front row last fall at Talladega for the Cup race, this spring Blaney was a Talladega DNQ. But such challenges only spur good teams, and Davis' organization has proven its mettle before.

While acknowledging the strength of his truck program -- Benson and Skinner were second and third last season to champion Ron Hornaday; Benson was second to Todd Bodine in 2006 and Skinner was fifth in the championship in 2005 -- Davis staunchly believes his Cup program, with the veteran Blaney and Daytona 500-winning crew chief Baldwin; is seriously on its way up.

Even though they only practiced 31st best on Friday afternoon at Pocono, the stats bear that out. Since their absolute low point to the season, failing to qualify at Talladega and seeming hopelessly out of the owners' top 35; Baldwin has guided Blaney to a ninth-best point total among all teams in the four races since, with two ninth places and two other finishes of 17th and 18th.

The good thing is Blaney's car is 30th in the owner standings, and little more than 100 points away from 25th. The bad thing is; he's only 98 points ahead of 36th. Davis, as usual, chooses to accentuate the positive.

"We've put some points on the board," Davis said of the rebound, prefacing his comments with a long sigh. "We went down to Talladega overconfident, because we sat on the outside pole last year and ran third, and [this year] we got spanked. You can't do that nowadays, especially if you're out of the top 35 -- you've got to be on top of your deal every week.

"I think we learned a lot from that and we got re-energized, and more focused. But [the top 35 rule] is a hard thing. I've got mixed emotions about it. I've always said it's a great thing if you're in [the top 35], and it's really hard if you're not."

Earlier this spring, Davis shook up the management structure of his team. While the key pieces were in place, with the exception of newly-hired vice president Marty Gaunt, who'd overseen Red Bull's entrance to NASCAR racing; the new organization, which moved Mark Chambers from Truck Series program manager to overall general manager, and Mike Brown from general manager to chief financial officer; has paid big dividends since then.

"We had some people whose talent was probably being wasted in the wrong places, and now we've got them where they need to be," Davis said. "Marty's come in and done a good job of communicating with our people, sponsors and all. Mark Chambers was managing the truck program and doing a great job, but he was willing to step up and take on all of it, and I think it's really worked out well."

With the way things went at Dover, Davis' laugh when asked if his only regret on the weekend was that there wasn't an ARCA speedway race for Annett, 21, to contend in; was truly rueful.

In nine career ARCA starts, Annett has two wins, five top-five finishes, eight top-10s, one pole and one mechanical failure. That earned him a Truck Series debut at Milwaukee later this month.

In fact, with Speed running the full ARCA RE/MAX Series schedule and thus being at Pocono for its Saturday ARCA race, for which practice and qualifying were Friday; Annett stepped into Speed's truck in Texas and qualified 16th in his first attempt.

"Michael Annett is the real deal," Davis said of the young man who's led laps in all but one of his ARCA races, the Iowa mechanical failure. "He is a super kid and comes from a great family and he's real focused on what he's doing and what we've got going."

While Speed, who has victories in ARCA and the Truck Series, where he won in only his sixth career start; has a future elsewhere, Annett, who Davis said spends about every day working at the BDR shops in High Point, N.C., is one of the more solid developmental drivers currently in the pipeline.

And that's been recognized at BDR, where a schedule that started with select ARCA races has segued to at least half of the remaining truck races in BDR's No. 22; with an eye to even bigger things in 2009.

"We're real excited about [Annett's] future at Bill Davis Racing, that's for sure," Davis said. "He's been at all the Cup tests and if he's not testing one of the Cup cars, he spots for Blaney. He's as active and hands-on as he could be.

"Next year, we'd like to run Michael in a full Nationwide schedule. That's certainly what makes the most sense for him."

Count Davis among the staunch supporters of NASCAR's new car, whether it's in Sprint Cup or transitioning it into the Nationwide Series, which has been met with dragging heels by some owners.

"There's something to be said with supporting the [new car] in the Nationwide Series, as the best training for Michael's [eventual] move to Sprint Cup," Davis said. "NASCAR's going to make its decision [on the Nationwide new car] based on a lot of factors, they believe in the [new car] and that's really the end of the story.

"It's all about safety, and the car definitely is safer; so I think people should just accept it and go on. Ultimately, it will probably save us money, as car owners -- and I don't know if you'd had the opportunity to see some of the prototype Nationwide cars -- but they really look good."