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CUP: Kvapil Still Hopeful
Written by: Tom Jensen   
02/26/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
In the Daytona 500 Travis Kvapil finished a disappointing 42nd, though he jumped up to 18th at Auto Club Speedway last Sunday. (Photo: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

Last year, Yates Racing lived basically hand-to-mouth, putting together some 20 different sponsorship deals together to keep Travis Kvapil’s No. 28 Ford afloat for the full 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.

And Kvapil certainly held up his end of the bargain, finishing a respectable 23rd in points in his first season with what essentially was a start-up team. Unfortunately, though, that didn’t do the 2003 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion much good.

With sponsors still in short supply, Yates signed Paul Menard — who brought backing from his father’s chain of home-improvement stores — in the off-season as one of its drivers and negotiated a deal with Hall of Fame Racing to run a car for 2000 Sprint Cup champ Bobby Labonte. Menard and Labonte got the 2008 owner points from Kvapil and his former teammate David Gilliland, the latter of whom was released by the team.

As a result, Kvapil has to make the first five Cup races of 2009 on speed, and only has sponsorship for those races. The marketing department at Yates is working furiously to cobble together a program like they had last year, but if they can’t find money, Kvapil could be looking for a job soon.

That, in turn, makes early results critical. In the Daytona 500 Kvapil finished a disappointing 42nd, though he jumped up to 18th at Auto Club Speedway last Sunday. And like many of his peers, he’s hoping for lady luck to smile on him at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Shelby 427, race No. 3 of 36 on the 2009 Sprint Cup calendar.

And he wants that luck to carry over to upcoming races at Atlanta and Bristol motor speedways, as well as Martinsville Speedway.

“Obviously, what we [did] in California [was] a big day for us,” said Kvapil. “We had a great car [there] last spring and just didn’t get the results. Vegas was a good track for us last year. It seemed like we struggled at Atlanta, but I feel like we made big improvements on our Atlanta track and our setup there from last spring and last fall, and hopefully we’ll just make that
much more of an improvement here for this spring. Overall, though, I feel like we’ll be okay.”

The drill is pretty basic actually: Keep qualifying for races, finish well and find money. “We’ve been fortunate to have a couple sponsors come around – Golden Corral, Farmer’s Insurance,” said Kvapil. “I don’t know what capacity they’ll be with us in the future, but hopefully they like what they see and want to stick around or we find somebody that we can keep putting deals together and keep it going.”

And so the team is still beating the bushes looking for sponsors with the season already under way.

“Our marketing team says there’s a lot of interest in our team right now,” said Kvapil. “All of the sponsors we had on our car a year ago are definitely interested. They haven’t closed the door on it, it seems like they’re holding back, not sure if they want to commit, so I think there are, hopefully, opportunities down the road where some of these teams will feel comfortable with the economy and their business and are able to get back into NASCAR racing. It’s definitely a great avenue to reach out to the fans.”

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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