Yates Racing's Travis Kvapil optimistic about team's search for more sponsorship
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Travis Kvapil was only assured of running in the first five NASCAR Sprint Cup races for the 2009 season in Yates Racing’s No. 28 Ford, but he’s hopeful that sponsorship will be obtained to allow him to continue racing the rest of 2009.
Kvapil finished 42nd in the Daytona 500 but rebounded with an 18th-place finish last weekend in the Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway in California.
“We’ve been fortunate to have a couple sponsors come around – Golden Corral, Farmer’s Insurance,” Kvapil said. “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.”
Kvapil was nearly shuffled out of the Yates lineup for 2009 when Paul Menard brought his family’s sponsorship to the team and Hall of Fame Racing formed an alliance with Yates that brought Bobby Labonte in as a driver.
But Kvapil survived, unlike former teammate David Gilliland, who was cut loose last week because of a lack of sponsorship. Now, though, Kvapil needs to continue to perform well to attract a sponsor.
“Obviously, what we [did] in California [was] a big day for us,” Kvapil said. “We had a great car [there] last spring and just didn’t get the results [36th]. 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 OK. Martinsville and Bristol are coming up, too. Those are tracks that I always tend to run pretty well at. So we just need to go out and perform, get the job done.”
Kvapil said that while he isn’t making calls to potential sponsors, Yates’ marketing officials told him they are confident there is enough interest in the team to bring in more sponsorship.
“All of the sponsors we had on our car a year ago are definitely interested,” Kvapil said. “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.”
