From our pals at the Sporting News …

By Reid Spencer

Sporting News NACSAR Wire Service

DARLINGTON, S.C. (May 9, 2008) — In baseball, there’s an expression — “sneaky fast” — for a pitcher with deceptive speed on his pitches.

In a sense, that term could apply to Yates Racing drivers Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland, who, without fanfare and without full-time sponsorship, have anchored their cars firmly in the top 35 in owner points this year.

Actually, it’s better than that. In the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship standings, Kvapil is 19th and Gilliland 20th — and that was after Richmond’s version of “the big one” gobbled up Gilliland’s No. 38 Ford on Lap 230 of the Dan Lowry 400. The unavoidable wreck knocked Gilliland out of the race, and he finished 41st — his first DNF of the season after three-straight 15th-place finishes.

That was just a minor setback, however, in a season that has been steady, if not spectacular, for both Yates drivers. Kvapil ran 16th at Richmond in the No. 28 Ford and has finished each of the first 10 Cup races.

That’s been the game plan for a revitalized Yates organization: finish races, stay solidly in the top 35 and come on strong as the season progresses.

“I think running under the radar is a perfect description,” Kvapil said before Cup practice on Thursday. “We haven’t really done anything to make people say, ‘Holy cow, look at these guys.’ With the 28 team, we’ve had two top-10s, and the 38’s got one.

“We’re solid, but more than anything, we’ve been finishing races 10th-to-20th a lot. That’s a good way to gain points and march our way up there a little bit. We haven’t been the ones that have been leading laps and been real flashy, but we’ve been really solid and consistent and finishing all the races.”

That consistency is responsible in large measure for the two drivers’ positions in the standings. Kvapil is 154 points behind 12th-place Kasey Kahne, who occupies the last Chase-eligible position, and Gilliland is 182 points behind Kahne. So you can forgive them at this point for starting to think more about qualifying for the Chase than simply staying in the top 35 in owner points (which guarantees starting positions in Cup races).

“We started off the year, and our main goal was that we cannot fall out of the top 35, because it’s so important when you’re going to look for sponsorship to be able to tell them you’re locked into the races,” said the 32-year-old Gilliland, who is competing in his second full season of Cup racing. “That was our first and foremost goal, to stay patient and finish the races. We were able to do that and put ourselves in a good points position now.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish so far, both Travis and I. I think we’ve both had strong runs. We’re both still in contention, points-wise. We haven’t put ourselves out of contention. We had a tough week last week, but we were running very well. That’s the thing. The consistency has been there this year, and that’s the biggest change from last year (when Gilliland finished 28th in points).”

Yates Racing made dramatic changes during the offseason. Team founder and patriarch Robert Yates retired, ceding control to his son, Doug Yates, one of the premier engine builders in the Cup garage. Yates brought in former Roush Fenway Racing general manager Max Jones as a partner, and the organization moved to a new headquarters adjacent to the Roush Fenway campus near the Concord (N.C.) Airport.

After relinquishing the No. 88 to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick Motorsports, the Yates organization hired Kvapil to replace retired Ricky Rudd in the No. 28, a number prominent in the heyday of Robert Yates Racing, thanks to the prowess of the late Davey Allison. The new job gave Kvapil a chance to work with veteran crew chief Todd Parrott.

Gilliland, who also got a new crew chief this year in Cully Barraclough, thinks the revamped organization at Yates has helped the performance of the teams significantly.

“We have Max Jones now, not only as an owner, but as a general manager as well,” Gilliland said. “That’s a piece of our puzzle that was missing last year, a general manager. Max Jones does a great job at that. If there’s a little fire getting started, he’s quick to go out and put it out, and I think that’s very important to keep everybody working in the same direction. It’s so easy, with all the people it takes to run in the Cup series, a little fire can turn into a forest fire if you don’t put it out.

“Just like Joe Gibbs Racing, you hear so much about their upper management, and I think that’s a strong point of our organization right now. At this level, you have to have everything right.”

The combination of performance and organization has helped the teams piece together a mosaic of part-time sponsorships. FreeCreditReport.com has signed on for additional races on Gilliland’s car, and Kvapil has attracted a string of one- and two-race deals. At Darlington this weekend, for example, the No. 28 team sports the livery of the Lafayette Ford dealership.

“It think it’s pretty tough to be where we’re at in the middle of the year and find that multimillion-dollar sponsorship that’s going to sign on for the rest of the year or long-term,” Kvapil said. “We’ll worry about that later in the year or in the offseason for next year and the years beyond that. But for now, our cars are solidly in the points, and we just need to keep moving them up. Along with that, hopefully, companies will come on and want to do a couple races at a time and get their feet wet a little bit in the Cup series.”

Unlike Gilliland, whose ascent to the Cup series has been meteoric, the 32-year-old Kvapil followed a convoluted path to Yates Racing. Driving for owner Steve Coulter in 2003, he won the Craftsman Truck Series championship, only to lose his ride to lack of sponsorship at the end of the season. After two disappointing years in Cup racing — with Penske Racing in 2005 and with Cal Wells in 2006 — Kvapil reestablished his driving credentials with a move to Roush Racing’s No. 6 Craftsman Truck Series entry in 2007.

“I felt like, after the ‘06 season, I was still young enough, and I still thought that, if I took a step over to the truck series and performed well there, that I would still have an opportunity to get back into a Cup car further down the road in my career,” Kvapil said. “That’s how I looked at it. And I knew it had to be with one of the powerhouse teams for me to have a chance to be competitive. So when Jack Roush asked me to drive that 6 truck, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

“I knew I could run competitively and probably compete for a championship in the truck series. If we did that, I knew opportunities down the road would come. I didn’t know where or who or what, but I knew the Cup opportunity would come further down the road, and that’s exactly how it worked out.

“Then, with Robert retiring and the realignment of the Yates Racing team, it’s worked out really well. Now Yates Racing has a great alliance with Roush. We buy their equipment. Along with buying their racecars, we get engineering support. It’s like I haven’t left the Roush family either, and I’m still running some truck races for them.”

And, quietly, both Kvapil and Gilliland are making their mark in the Cup series, though both feel they’re now in position to make some noise.

“Now we can go after the top 10s and really give these sponsors something to want to go after,” Kvapil said.

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