Conversation: Travis Kvapil

Following the Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Wisconsin's Travis Kvapil was a surprise champion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

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But that in no way implies that the series' youngest champion, 27, was in any way undeserving of the title. That was far from the case as Kvapil won once, scored 13 top-five and 22 top-10 finishes in 25 starts and completed all but one lap all season.

Kvapil talked with NASCAR.com's Dave Rodman about Wisconsin's double champions, getting booted out the door by his championship team and helping bring Toyota into the Craftsman Truck Series.

You won the Craftsman Truck Series title on Friday, and since you were testing a new Toyota truck on Monday, have you figured out when, and how you're going to celebrate this championship?

	Crew chief Chris Showalter (left) with Kvapil Credit: AP

Travis Kvapil: (laughing) I hope I get some more celebration in, for sure, but we definitely had a good time after the race was over Friday night at Homestead, and we continued the celebration Saturday night at the awards banquet.

Still, I hope I get some more time to celebrate besides those few short hours and those days.

What a fun time it was. The offseason is short, for sure. We've already done some testing, Monday and Tuesday of this week, and we're already getting geared-up for the 2004 season.

It's a pretty special postseason for Wisconsin, wouldn't you say, with a pair of Wisconsin natives, yourself and Matt Kenseth, winning major NASCAR championships?

Travis Kvapil: It definitely is. It's pretty neat that Matt Kenseth and myself both won championships, in Cup and in the Truck Series. We came from basically real similar short track backgrounds, racing at the same racetracks.

I kind of followed a little bit in Matt's footsteps and it's pretty cool that we could both come out on top this year. It's really good for the Midwest and Wisconsin fans, no doubt.

People might think that you and Matt are a lot alike. You guys are kind of quiet and all business, but obviously you get the job done. How would you respond to anyone that says you guys ought to liven it up a little?

	Kvapil set a Craftsman Truck Series record by completing all but one lap in 2003. Credit: Nate Mecha, HSP

Travis Kvapil: Well (laughing), my whole life I've definitely been a person that's let my actions speak louder than my words, you know? I've never really been that boisterous or outspoken, but that's just my attitude.

That's just how I was raised, I guess. I don't really care -- and I think Matt's kind of the same way -- to be the center of attention all the time.

I just like to go out and race and try to do a good job and try to run up front and that's what I enjoy doing. All the other things that come along with it, I don't really get too wrapped-up in.

How special is it to you, or maybe how ironic was it to have your situation with Xpress Motorsports work out the way it did? They decided not to renew your contract for next season and then you deliver their second consecutive Craftsman Truck Series championship.

Travis Kvapil: Yeah, I definitely have mixed feelings there. As we speak, I'm at the (Xpress) shop this afternoon cleaning out my locker (laughing).

You would think we'd be in here cracking jokes and having a good time with all of the guys -- not that we're not -- but it's just kind of dismal that such a good thing that we had here has to come to an end.

I built some great relationships this past year and made some good friends and that's something that you can never take away. Obviously I'd like to stick around with these guys and see if we couldn't get after it again.

For whatever reason things changed and I'm definitely not going to dwell on it. I'm already excited about next year and already want to get geared up for next year and start getting ready for the future.

Obviously, you didn't let the news that Jack Sprague would replace you affect your performance. What can you say about a team and a crew chief, Chris Showalter, which enabled you to complete all but one lap this past season?

	Kvapil's lone win of 2003 came at Bristol in August. Credit: Autostock

Travis Kvapil: That's really what won us the championship and that's really pretty amazing. I think that's the best track record for anybody so far in the Truck Series and that's really what won us the championship.

We didn't go out and win the most races or lead the most laps, but we were there at the end of every day and knocking down some pretty good finishes all the way down the line.

The guys back at the shop that build these trucks and put them together are the reason why we won the championship, along with Mark Smith, who put together great, reliable engines all year long.

If it weren't for that this team wouldn't have been able to repeat as champions.

Talk about the range of emotions you went through on race day last Friday at Homestead, and how big a deal this championship is to you?

Travis Kvapil: Well, right from the beginning at the drop of the green flag it was a crazy day. Going in we were a fair bit behind and quite honestly, I didn't expect we would come out of there being champions.

On the first lap, we had a good starting spot and very nearly wrecked the whole field when we got turned sideways in the first corner in front of everybody.

Craftsman Truck Series  Final Driver Standings  Owner Standings  Rookie Standings

Luckily we escaped disaster there and then, three-quarters of the way through the race, Brendan (Gaughan) got caught up in his trouble.

That's what really opened the way for myself, Ted (Musgrave) and Dennis (Setzer) to race for the championship. It went all the way down to a green-white-checker finish for us to settle the championship, and we were all lined up right in a row -- so it was pretty exciting.

Then Ted jumped the restart and NASCAR black-flagged him and then they reviewed their decision for about 10 minutes after the race and we all had to sit there in suspense waiting for the decision. Luckily, everything kind of went our way, for sure.

Like I said, going in, we knew Brendan would have to have some trouble and Ted would have to fall back from us and that's exactly how it worked out. We kept our nose clean and had a decent finish.

Looking ahead to 2004, how big of a challenge do you see it being, with a new race team, a totally new manufacturer and that being Toyota, which has some people a little upset?

	Kvapil goes three-wide at Daytona, Feb. 2003. Credit: Autostock

Travis Kvapil: I'm excited for sure, because I think Toyota is definitely going to come in running strong and they're going to do what it takes to get their trucks out front.

I'm expecting a few growing pains along the way, but I hope that with enough off-season testing and enough dyno runs on their engines that they can get all the bugs worked out before we have to work them out on the racetrack.

I think we'll come out strong. We're building a whole new team at Bang Racing with Larry McReynolds and we're starting from the ground up.

I'm excited for that, because we can go out and assemble a great group of guys but at the same time we have to figure out how to make this work in a fairly short period of time.

What was your first impression of the Toyota Tundra, at Homestead?

Travis Kvapil: I thought it went pretty good. We feel like there's some room for improvement, for sure, on the bodies.

This was one of the first trucks they had built and I think with some more wind tunnel time and some more track testing that we'll be able to move things around a little bit and tweak it out a little bit and get a little better performance out of it.

I think, for the first time out of the box I was pretty happy with it. We were able to run some really competitive lap times and some good speeds and I think we definitely got some good data to look at over the next couple months to work on it and make it better for the future.

It was a very good test and very promising and I think we can learn a lot from it and make it better for the next couple tests.

Is this Toyota deal particularly intriguing to you because of the potential long-term ramifications of it, with the manufacturer possibly looking at the (Nextel Cup Series) several years down the road?

	Kvapil gave Xpress Motorsports its second straight title, but the team will use Jack Sprague as its driver in 2004. Credit: AP

Travis Kvapil: Well, definitely, though there really hasn't been any talk that that's what they want to do.

I'm kind of looking into the deal as if that's what they're going to do and hopefully I can get in on the ground level of a deal like this and build a relationship with the team for the next couple years.

I think Bang Racing is looking the same kind of scenario, too. In a couple years they want to go (Nextel Cup) racing, so hopefully teaming up with them now those are steps that we can all take together and that's what I'm hoping can happen.

This is two years in a row now that I've been in the same situation, having to switch teams and I'd like to get to the end of a year and be able to look ahead to the next season without having to worry about finding a job or building another new team.

Looking short-term, is defending your championship a reasonable possibility?

Travis Kvapil: I definitely think so. Like I said, I think there will be some growing pains that we're going to have to get through, but I think that this team that we are putting together is going to be strong enough to work through it and we're putting guys together than have experience and have won championships in the past, so I think we can do it.

It's something that we can make happen. I wouldn't say it's one of our goals, but we're definitely going to strive for it.

Who's going to be your crew chief at Bang Racing?

Craftsman Truck Series  Tools of the Trade

Travis Kvapil: We don't have one, yet. Rick Ren is going to be Mike Skinner's crew chief, and he was my crew chief for a couple years when I was at the 60 truck (Addington Racing).

We're still looking for somebody for me, we're just interviewing guys and we're not really sure what we're going to do.

What plans do you and the family have for the off-season, which as you say isn't very long?

Travis Kvapil: Well, we really don't have any set right now (laughing). We were planning on going for Thanksgiving, maybe, up to Wisconsin.

We're definitely going up there for Christmas, but I have to go to New York in a couple weeks for the Winston Cup banquet so I'm not sure if I'm still going to go to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving or not.

I'm not really sure what our plans will be. We'll probably be doing some testing in there, somewhere. But other than that, we don't really have anything planned.