Consistent Kvapil eyes success in Las Vegas

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003 | 9:24 a.m.

When Travis Kvapil was hired at the end of last season to drive the No. 16 truck that Mike Bliss drove to the 2002 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship, some observers were all but ready to concede this year's title to the talented young driver.

After all, Kvapil had put together a sensational rookie year in which he won a race, posted 18 top-10 finishes in 24 starts, finished fourth in the championship and captured the Rookie of the Year award. Despite a rocky start to his sophomore season in the series, Kvapil came on strong at the end of 2002 and finished ninth in points.

Even Kvapil, 27, admitted he expected to dominate the 2003 Truck Series in Steve Coulter's IWX Motor Freight team. Actually, Kvapil, a Janesville, Wis., native, is having a championship-caliber season and would be running away with the championship if not for equally outstanding seasons by Las Vegas' Brendan Gaughan and fellow Wisconsin native Ted Musgrave.

Kvapil comes into Saturday's Las Vegas 350 NCTS race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (7 p.m.) trailing Gaughan by 42 points in the standings and only 20 points ahead of the veteran Musgrave.

"We've been consistent -- solid -- but we haven't been as dominant as I thought we needed to be to go out there and win the championship," Kvapil said. "But there's six races to go and we need to go out and get a couple victories and put the heat on those guys."

So far this season, Kvapil has managed to avoid the niggling problems that plagued him a year ago. Kvapil has been running at the end of every race this year and has completed 3,287 of 3,288 laps through the first 19 races. Kvapil has one victory and only 17 top-10s.

Still, he acknowledged he has to run nearly perfect races the remainder of the season to win the championship.

"You can't have anything really go wrong in the Truck Series because the competition is so stiff," Kvapil said. "For example, this year we've only got two finishes outside the top 10; you would think with a year like that, you'd be running away with the points and we're barely in second place right now.

"You can't afford to have any mistakes. You've got to stay on top of it and go out there and win."

Which is what Kvapil said he hopes to do Saturday night.

"I've run there twice and I've got two top-five finishes," Kvapil said of the 1.5-mile LVMS superspeedway. "The 16 truck, with Mike Bliss, ran second there last year so we should be pretty good. It's similar to California (because) the groove opens up and you really do some good three-wide racing; it's a lot of fun."

Kvapil trailed Gaughan by only nine points going into last weekend's race at California Speedway, but battled an ill-handling truck and finished eighth while Gaughan took second.

"We just never got the right balance on the truck; we fought it all day," Kvapil said. "Eighth is a decent finish -- anytime you can get a top 10 is a nice day -- but for us to step up and go after it and win the championship, we need to be in the top five and we need to be fighting for wins.

"It's going to come down to the wire, for sure, and we can't afford to have any mistakes or have any problems."