Mike Stefanik, who was the 1999 Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year in the #66 truck, is moving up to the Busch Series this year. He'll be running 17 out of the 32 scheduled BGN races in the #90 Coyne Textile Services Chevy, owned by Fred Maggio and Gene Adragna. Stefanik, who will turn 42 this May, is no stranger to being an expert in different types of racing. In 1997 and 1998, he won double NASCAR touring division championships in the Featherlite Modified Tour and the Busch North Series. The team plans to run at small and intermediate tracks. Corrie Stott, who was previously crew chief for Sterling Marlin and Jimmy Spencer and has worked with Hendrick Motorsports on Jeff Gordon's team, will be the crew chief for the #90 car in the upcoming season.
Last year was owner Maggio's first full year in the Busch Series, and it gave him a quick lesson in how demanding a top series can be. The team ran a full schedule with veteran Greg Sacks and Midwest stock car driver Brad Loney driving the cars. It was a tough year, but Sacks pulled off a tenth place finish in the season opening NAPA Auto Parts 300 at Daytona, and they had a number of good qualifying runs.
It's apparent that Stefanik, if everything had gone his way, would have rather taken a shot at being the 2000 CTS champion. Unfortunately, Dale Phelon, who owns the #66 truck, decided to go with Rick Carelli. Here's Stefanik's thoughts on the situation:
"I really didn't want to leave the trucks, per se. I don't like to leave a series without figuring it out. That hasn't been my history. The situation just didn't develop in the truck series. Eventually, I wanted to conquer the trucks and move on to Busch, anyways. So, this just speeds up the process. I didn't get a chance to make a big mark in the truck series. That's just the way it goes. I'm very happy to be back in the Busch Series. I've never been in it completely for a full schedule, and I won't be until next year. But I have a lot of patience and when it comes to building programs I like to be involved as long as there's a future down the road for me. This sounds like a good situation for me. I'm going to be able to get in on the ground floor of this rebuilding process and get an awful lot of testing in. I've been here a few times in my career and usually that's where I've made the best gain - in programs that were reforming or ones that were being formed. They have finances behind them with CTS -- Coyne Textile Services. It should be a good situation down the road. It's far from a well-oiled machine at this point, but it seems he (Maggio) has his ducks in a row and he's marching them along."
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