Last August, at Tennessee's Bristol Motor Speedway, Michael Waltrip and Ty Norris had a discussion about their future NASCAR plans. Waltrip and Norris had previously worked together at Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI), where Norris served as general manager and Waltrip drove the No. 15 NAPA Nextel Cup entry.

Waltrip dreamed of taking his part-time Busch Series team -- Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) -- and turning it into a full-time, multi-car NASCAR Nextel Cup program. Waltrip was seeking was an experienced individual to oversee the process -- and Norris was the person he wanted for the role.

A month after their initial conversation, Norris accepted the general manager position at Michael Waltrip Racing -- and that's when things began moving as quickly as a stock car on the straightaway at Daytona International Speedway.

Norris, 40, already had a vast amount of experience building a race team. Beginning in 1996, Norris was responsible for starting a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) team and managing a Busch Series program at DEI. During his tenure, DEI captured a pair of titles in both the Craftsman Truck and Busch series.

Soon after accepting the MWR position, Norris started building the Nextel Cup race team. "We had the advantage of starting with a clean sheet of paper," Norris says. "But we also benefited from having an operational Busch Series team and a Craftsman Truck Series team as part of the family."

"We decided to move the Busch Series effort from part-time to a full-time team, while continuing to support the two Toyota Tundras Darrell Waltrip Motorsports fields in the NCTS."

Of course, the key element to any successful racing program is having financial support, along with the necessary partners to succeed.

"Michael's role as a race car driver and a television personality plays a key part in securing and developing relationships with sponsors," adds Norris. "For the 2007 season, we already have secured NAPA as the primary sponsor on the No. 55 Toyota Camry and we have obtained sponsorship for the No. 00 Toyota Camry -- a second Cup car for next year."

Once the business and financial plans were in place, the next step was coming up with a concept for what the race team would look like.

"We developed an organizational chart for the race teams and put that on the wall -- filling in the names of the individuals we had already hired and leaving blank spots for positions that need to be filled," notes Norris. "Right now, we've gone through all those exercises -- we know where we are and where we need to be. We have significant lists of the people who have contacted us and we also have a list of people who we are interested in hiring."

At the moment, Michael Waltrip Racing is preparing for the team's limited Nextel Cup schedule with Bill Elliott later this season, as well as the team's Daytona debut with Toyota Camrys in February.

"One of the toughest things to do right now is to get enough chassis," Norris says. "So we have some coming from Hopkins, we have ordered some from TRD and we're building some of are own. When the Camry sheet metal is approved in June or July, we'll immediately start attaching the approved body to the chassis and get on with testing."

It's obvious the race to get ready for 2007 -- and the debut of the Toyota Camry -- has already begun and that everyone at Michael Waltrip Racing is working feverishly to prepare for next year's season Daytona 500 opener.