By: Ashley McCubbin

With three top-10’s through the first seven races of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season, it is safe to say things have started off on a good note for Carson Kvapil.

“I am very happy with how we are performing and how the switching from the 1 to the 9 to the 91 has gone so far, but I wish we had a win by now,” Kvapil told NewsFromThePits.com “I kind of feel like we’ve already already hit some tracks that I feel like we’d be good at and we had top-three finishes, top-five finishes, and we just haven’t came out with a win yet. 

“I think so far this year with Rodney (Childers crew chiefing) on the one car has been really good. I feel like we’ve had speed at every racetrack we’ve went to and we’ve got a bunch of stage points and we came out with a fifth-place finish, and that’s considered a bad day? So I think winning is the only goal right now; if we don’t win, it wasn’t a good day, right? And I think that’s good and bad. I think it’s good because that shows that we have higher extraordinary expectations than what we previously did and whatnot, but to make it short and simple, yeah, we’ve had having a good year so far.”

As Kvapil alluded to, he is getting the chance to work with veteran crew chief Rodney Childers on the No. 1 entry at JR Motorsports – but he will not race all of the events in that car. Instead, his season will be split between a trio of entries – the No. 1 and No. 9 for JRM, as well as the No. 91 for DGM Racing.

“It’s tough,” he admitted. “I mean, I feel like there’s good and bad – a lot more bad than good from switching car-to-car. But I feel like the (No.) 1 team stuff, we’re really good, I mean, if we don’t win every race that we go to or any weekend, we go it’s a letdown, right? So to me, that’s like the main anchor anchor team; that’s the team that I race most races with (and) those are kind of my guys, and that’s going, and we’re all happy over there. 

“Then when I jumped over to the (No.) 9 for five races – there’s four to go on that one – we feel good. I mean, it’s a part-time car, so it’s not fully – I mean, it’s fully developed and there’s enough staff, but it’s just different. It’s not a team that’s been together for three years and all that, but we go there to win races and run really well, and get a good points day. Then the No. 91, I feel like the 91 is to get points, and if we’re in a position to set up for a win, we’re going to do that. But if we ain’t, we’re just going to try to give a good point.”

Kvapil added switching in-between is difficult due to being really hard to get into a rhythm, but feels the experience will benefit him in the long run developing as a driver.  He is fully ready to take advantage of the situation, too, in knowing the experience surrounding him at JRM, whether from Childers’ experience as a past NASCAR Cup Series Championship Crew Chief or his teammate Justin Allgaier, who won the O’Reilly Series title last year.

“I mean, just to be at the calibre of a team that JRM is huge,” he expressed. “I mean, I feel like we have arguably the best cars every week and for the most part, race our teammates for the wins. So I feel really confident in the race cars that we have and just feel like JRM is a well put together, solid team. For us to be able to run five cars in one weekend is crazy and just shows how well-organised and put together the JR Motorsports camp is.”

Kvapil is back in the No. 1 this weekend working with Childers at Rockingham Speedway and will take the green flag from the fifth spot in Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 250 Presented by Black’s Tire.

“I feel pretty excited about it,” Kvapil shared prior to the weekend. “I mean every racetrack I’ve gone to so far, I’ve felt pretty excited about exceptions for maybe one or two, but we led some laps last year at Rockingham, and had a strong car last year. After the last pit stop, we didn’t really do the right things in the car, we fell back in the top-10 and from there, they wrecked a few times and then we got caught up in it, so our finish wasn’t great. But I do feel like we had a good car and we were fast.”

Going into the weekend, Kvapil felt strongly about his chances at contending for a win, as long as he could get a good starting spot.

“I love Rockingham – it’s a cool type of place,” he continued. “It’s one of those racetracks where just a bunch of buddies built it in 1948 with no engineering or NASA, and they just start carving out a trail and dump some dirt, right? So the track is very unique as turn one and two is completely different from turn three and four, and the straightaways are different shapes.  I mean everything about it is just different, so it reminds me of a kind of good old short track that’s very non-symmetrical. It’s one of those tracks where it’s high grip because it’s recently paved, but it’s got a lot of characteristics of an old short track. There are different things you can do (and) different lines you can run to your advantage.”

Stay tuned this coming week for more of our interview with Carson Kvapil as we talk towards the rest of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season……..