Truck Series return not going as Kvapil had hoped (cont'd)

"But what was nice was, the team didn't just say, 'Well, this is what we did a year ago. We got a fast truck, so you just need to learn how to drive it.' They listened to what I was saying and they were smart enough to figure it out. It wasn't just the 6; it was the 99 and the 50 [team trucks] was struggling, as well. As a group we all figured out what we needed to do and changed our direction. It's really paid off."

The new nose was a speed bump for Kvapil and his veteran team, but the brain trust of crew chief Mike Beam and engineer Hal Ralston has given him new hope.

"I'm not the one as a driver who is going to say, 'This is what we need to do.' I just give them the best feedback I can, and tell them what the truck is doing and where it's doing it in the corner," Kvapil said. "The crew chiefs and engineers can look at what they had the year before and what we have now, and they can see a trend as to why we're off. They're smart enough to cut the bodies apart and tweak them around a little bit to get that balance back."

After some nip-and-tuck work to the bodies, the new nose seemed to work better, Kvapil said, but it was a five-race struggle to get to that point.

"It changed the truck enough to where we had to change the rest of the truck around it," Kvapil said. "We have more downforce, the drag is good and everything is better than last year. It's just taken us the whole package to get there."

After running most of the past two seasons in the Cup series with Wells, Kvapil said the trip back to the Truck Series was an adjustment, especially as a family man with young children.

"The biggest thing is the grind," Kvapil said of the premier NASCAR series. "I didn't mind racing the 36 weeks the last couple of years in Cup; what I didn't like about it was the fact that you had to be gone four days out of the week. You're only home three, and with kids and things going on -- and you stick appearances in there on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday -- your week is pretty short and your family time is pretty limited."

Yet, what Kvapil wants to do is go right back to the grind ... this time in a better situation than he had with Wells.

"For me, my aspiration is to get back into Cup racing, and this is a great avenue at Roush Fenway in the Truck program to kind of re-establish my career and prove to Jack Roush or anyone else that I am capable of running in a competitive car."

Kvapil said the thing that amazed him after he got to Roush Fenway was the resources available to him and his team.

"That's what is so neat about driving over here," he said. "Even after the first race, I made the comment -- and this is no slam on Cal Wells, he was just limited with his funding -- we spent more time in the wind tunnel and time on the seven-post shaker with this Truck team than we did with the Cup car. It pays off and it shows with the results now.

"When you have a limited budget, no multi-million-dollar sponsors and teammates to bounce ideas off, you just kind of take what you've got and do the best you can with it. He [Wells] did a great job of that. It's a whole different attitude with me. I'm coming to the track every week to win, I know have equipment and the team to win. What we were doing last year, we just had to make races and do the best we could on Sunday."