As the Round of 8 begins this weekend for the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Carson Kvapil has added motivation to break into victory lane and advance into the final four next month at Phoenix Raceway.
In some ways, he is racing for his career, at least in terms of how it has looked in 2025.
When JR Motorsports announced the hiring of future Hall of Fame crew chief Rodney Childers last month, it came with the revelation that he would oversee a car shared by both Kvapil and Connor Zilisch. In other words, Kvapil is not scheduled to run a second consecutive full season in 2026.
Kvapil says it’s exactly what it looks like too.
“There’s definitely no underlying thing we’re trying to hide and this isn’t what anyone wants,” Kvapil told motorsport.com over the weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I feel very fortunate and lucky to have gotten this full-time opportunity this year. I would be lying if I said it has gone exactly the way we all wanted it to.
“But I also understand the financials and it’s hard to put a full season together when you’re missing a good chunk of money. But I am so grateful for what JR Motorsports has done, taking a Super Late Model guy and putting me in the Late Model Stock, and giving me a chance to chase a NASCAR career and I can’t thank them enough for that.”
A lack of funding
Carson Kvapil, JR Motorsports Chevrolet
Photo by: Jeffrey Vest / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Kvapil doesn’t bring any money to the table. What he has, as the second-generation racing son of Truck Series champion Travis Kvapil, is a lot of positive relationships in the industry, two CARS Tour championships and the respect of his peers as a driver who is capable of working on his own race cars.
He just doesn’t have full-time NASCAR money right now.
“I don’t bring anything to the table and whatever races we put together next year, that’s JR Motorsports being on my side and doing all they can,” he said. “I am very grateful to what they have done, giving me a great chance to go win races next year and I feel like that is very doable. It’s probably good to change things up and its not like the plan is to sit on the sidelines for the weeks I’m not scheduled to race either.
Alternate plans
“We have a plan A and B to fill in some things and you never know, right, things could change because we’re still a long way from February.”
In other words, there are still a lot of directions his career could play out over the next several months.
If Kvapil advances into the Final Four and has a good showing at Phoenix, that doesn’t hurt. If he wins a race or even the championship, that doesn’t hurt. Maybe, and this is certainly one of the realistic options, Kvapil takes the races with JRM and finds another team to complete a full schedule that gives him a chance in the playoffs, assuming there is a playoff format.
Certainly, paired with Childers, there is a great potential for winning multiple races next season.
“That is definitely something we’ve been thinking about since that press release came out,” Kvapil said. “I don’t have a couple of million dollars in my back pocket just waiting to be spend on a ride so we don’t have the most concrete plans so there are a lot of moving parts.
“But you’re right that being with Rodney, we should be able to go win races, and these JRM cars are so fast and we have such a great group of people that maybe, hopefully we can fill out our schedule here. We just need to find some money and people willing to help out.
“But right now, our main goal is to finish this year strong. We’re in the Round of 8 so we’re not bad. This is just a young team. We’ve had some second-place finishes and a lot of consistency. We just needed some wins to make some more headlines. We still have a chance to win a championship.”
And regardless of what happens, Kvapil still has a pathway to the highest level just like his predecessor Josh Berry had with JR Motorsports five years ago. In 2020, Berry won the NASCAR Weekly Series national championship driving the JRM Late Model and Dale Jr. and Kelly Earnhardt Miller found the funding to put a half season together.
That half season practically became a full season when Michael Annett broke his leg and Berry finished the year out and had two wins across two cars. He was full-time the next year and reached the final four with three wins.
That turned into a Cup career at Stewart-Haas Racing and now the Wood Brothers where he has now won a race and established himself as a regular.
In other words, having a part-time JRM deal and working with Childers is not the worst starting point for next season.
“Honestly, I haven’t even thought of it that way, but like you said, we’re not looking for anyone to get hurt,” Kvapil said. “That’s not what you want to see, but you’re right that anything can happen, and I would be more than happen to fill-in if something happened along the way.
“Right now, more than anything, we just need to focus on getting into that final four and trying to win once we get there. If we do that, finish our year strong at Phoenix, that will make it much easier to plan on making next year a really strong year.”
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