On one hand, the rookie season for Carson Kvapil was a disappointment, but on the other hand, he advanced to the final four and was able to scrounge enough success and attention that it got him a second full-time season at JR Motorsports, albeit under unique circumstances.
Kvapil advanced to the championship race in the No. 1 car with crew chief Andrew Overstreet but they didn’t win either.
Earlier in the autumn months, Kvapil inked just a part-time deal to drive the No. 1, but will share it with reigning champion Connor Zilisch with legendary crew chief Rodney Childers returning to the sport to oversee the program.
But that left part of the schedule still needing to be filled, with Kvapil telling Motorsport.com last month that he was open to driving for other teams, but car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. confirmed last week that his prospect would be full-time next season.
Dale Jr. confirms
On Tuesday, Earnhardt confirmed the schedule would be split amongst all of his cars, with various teams and crew chiefs supporting the Kvapil effort.
“One thing that’s sort of been kind of talked about, Carson Kvapil full time, we made that announcement that he would be driving in every race next year,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr Download. “And yes, he’ll be driving JR Motorsports cars.
“And we do have a fifth entry here. A lot of people are like, ‘wow, he’s going to be driving JR Motorsports cars. They’re going to build cars and send them to other teams and all that.’ People forget we got a fifth car here.
There’s ways to kind of move parts and pieces around and people around, drivers around, and get everything we need done, done.”
Why not just move Zilisch to another car and let Kvapil work with Childers full-time?
“We have contracts and agreements and we can’t. We just can’t. And so, you know, it’s still going to work out.”
As for his season on the whole, Kvapil says it was a learning experience, and is just grateful to be back on the tour next year.
“There’s just some things on our end that we can work on and hopefully next year will be an improvement over this year,” Kvapil said. “Like, this year was good and I was proud of what we did but I was hoping to win a couple of races, which we weren’t able to do, but we did put ourselves in a great spot to make the final four and race for a championship.”
To wit, being able to earn a second season, is something he doesn’t take for granted.
“Not everyone gets the opportunity to come back for a second year at this level,” Kvapil said. “Like, they don’t get the opportunity at a second or third year to even figure it out. It takes time for some guys to pick up racing at this level and become a weekly threat.
“I’m going to spend some time this winter thinking about the way I can be better and by time we hit Daytona in February, I think I’m going to be in a good head space knowing what I need to do next season.”
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