Spotlight on Ryan ‘Rudy’ Fugle, Kyle Busch Motorsports Crew Chief

Photo – KBM

In his fourth straight (fifth overall) full-time season atop the pit box for Kyle Busch Motorsports, Ryan ‘Rudy’ Fugle has collected an owner’s championship in each year in addition to a pair of driver’s championships…all while captaining the ship for a different driver in each season since 2015.

Fugle’s first driver after taking over the gig full-time in 2015 was Erik Jones, who captured that year’s Sunoco Rookie of the Year title and the series crown. Fugle then won the owner’s championship with William Byron behind the wheel in 2016 and topped that off by sweeping the owner’s and driver’s titles with Christopher Bell last year.

All told, Fugle has tallied 21 wins as crew chief in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, 15 of them in the past three seasons between Jones, Byron, and Bell. In 2013, through 21 races, he won five races with team owner Kyle Busch driving and a sixth with Bell piloting the truck.

In 103 total races as crew chief in the truck series, Fugle’s drivers have recorded 49 top-fives, 75 top-tens, and 14 pole awards.

At Dover, coming up after the break in the action for the series, Fugle has tallied a win (Busch, 2013), a pole (Byron, 2016) and a pair of top-five and top-ten finishes.

This year, Fugle guides Noah Gragson in the No. 18 KBM Toyota. Together, the pair has posted a pair of top-five and top-ten finishes in the opening four races of 2018. But Gragson is hoping that Fugle’s success at Dover leads him to Victory Lane as he searches for his second career win behind the wheel of a truck.