Yates Racing's Travis Kvapil needs strong Bristol run to attract sponsor, run Martinsville
Yates Racing's Travis Kvapil says he needs sponsorship to go to Martinsville Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Travis Kvapil says that his Yates Racing team will not run at Martinsville Speedway next week unless a sponsor can be found at the last minute.
But the plan is to be looking for sponsorship so he can race some more as a third car in the Yates Racing program in the future.
“What I was kind of told is we’ll unload everything and then load the hauler back up and have it ready to go and put the tarps over the cars,” Kvapil said of racing at Martinsville Speedway Friday after qualifying for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. “It doesn’t take a whole lot to pull the trigger on our team.
“We didn’t rob from any other team to put this deal together. We kind of started it all up. It’s all there and who knows? If we miss Martinsville, which I pray we don’t, I anticipate we’ll be back on track later in the year.”
The situation this weekend at Bristol is the most dire since Kvapil started working with the team in 2008, when the team lacked sponsorship but committed to run the entire season and was able to piece enough sponsorship together to field two cars the entire year.
This year, the team has full sponsorship for drivers Paul Menard and Bobby Labonte (whose sponsorship is through a partnership with Hall of Fame Racing).
That left Kvapil (and the recently released David Gilliland) in limbo, and even though Kvapil finished last season 23rd in points, he started the year without owners points. A blown tire, an engine failure and missing the race at Las Vegas have hindered the team and it is 39th in owners points entering the Bristol race.
Kvapil said he has not started searching for another job.
“I understand the situation, but Yates Racing is where I want to be,” Kvapil said. “I feel like we’re so much more improved than where we were a year ago, but with no decals on the side of the car, it’s hard to go racing.
“We ran all of last year halfway funded, and here we are this year, kind of in the same situation. You can’t keep spending and spending and spending and hoping for it to turn down the road. We’re doing the best we can. I’m here, and I’ll try to make the most of it.”
Kvapil said it is likely a few team members will be let go but he hopes that Yates, an affiliate of Roush Fenway Racing, can absorb the personnel or move them to Roush Fenway.
“Every week I tell my guys that they give me great race cars,” Kvapil said. “There’s nothing you can do about some racing luck with the engines and blown tires and things like that, but I feel like I’m much more competitive this year than I was a year ago, but we’re just not getting the results to show for it."
Kvapil will start 17th in the Food City 500 on Sunday.
“Definitely from this point on there’s a lot of uncertainty for our team, so we need to go out and have a good run,” Kvapil said. “We’ve had just an incredible amount of bad luck, I feel like, this season and [we're now] at the time where we need the most luck to have a couple of good things go our way.
“We’ve had very fast race cars and have raced competitively, but just haven’t had the results with our finishes. Hopefully, we just have a good day on Sunday and run all 500 laps.”
But Kvapil will want to be aggressive. Not only does he need to impress sponsors, but the team is 72 points out of the top 35. While unlikely, there is a remote chance he could run so well and some others struggle that he could get in the top 35 and be guaranteed a spot in the next race – if his team has the money to get there.
“You’ve got to be smart,” Kvapil said about his race strategy. “If something does happen to fall out of the sky in the next few days, top 35 is a goal for sure. We don’t want to be going through this [qualifying on speed] every week.
“It’s a lot easier to sell sponsorship when you’re locked in, but at the same time, there’s a big question mark there even will be a Martinsville. We’re going to push really hard and try to get us a top-five, but if we can come out with a top-10, we’ll be really pleased.”
What would really be pleasing is a sponsor.
“The plan is to kind of not go to Martinsville, but, at the same time, we’ll see what happens this weekend and we definitely are still in the middle of talking to a couple sponsors,” Kvapil said. “It seems like they have a lot of interest, but time is running out.”
