DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Doug Yates wasn't surprised that Chip Ganassi was forced to fold his No. 40 Dodge team this week because of a dearth of sponsorship money.

Yates has been walking that tightrope all season.

Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland

“

At the start of the season, our goals were to be solid and to try to be positioned well within the top 35. ... Now, we feel like we can be solid in the top 20.

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DOUG YATES

But with Travis Kvapil scoring three top-10 finishes and sitting 19th in the standings at the season's halfway point -- and David Gilliland's second at Infineon Raceway highlighting his 22nd-place effort in points -- Yates' goal of making it to the end of the year looks more likely.

"At the start of the season, our goals were to be solid and to try to be positioned well within the top 35," Yates said. "Every week, it seems like the goal's -- the bar's -- raised a little bit. That's the kind of effort and momentum you'd like to see. Now, we feel like we can be solid in the top 20."

Kvapil qualified 11th for Saturday night's Coke Zero 400. Gilliland, who never made a mock qualifying run in Thursday's rain-shortened practice, wound up 27th.

Sponsorship remains the biggest hurdle for the two-car operation, but Yates said attitudes are slowly changing.

"It's really about sponsorship now, because I think most of the other things are in place," Yates said. "We have good, solid drivers; good, solid crew chiefs. We know where we're heading in the future, which is a great thing. Because a year ago, we were grasping."

Taking over the team from father Robert, Doug's immediate concern was getting cars on the track in time for the season-opening Daytona 500. Now, as the series returns to Daytona International Speedway, Yates can see some light at the end of the sponsorship tunnel.

"The first of the year, I think people were just trying to figure out what Yates Racing was," Yates said. "What's this new team?

"At first, it was a little tough to get meetings with sponsors, just to propose things. Now, the past couple of months, the doors are starting to open up and people are liking what they hear about our team. So a lot of things are in the works and we just have to keep going out every week."

Yates was recently quoted as saying as many as six Sprint Cup teams could go out of business or merge.

"I think that it goes back to when NASCAR first talked about four-car teams," Yates said. "They just put a four-car limit on it. And a lot of people started scrambling and tried to get to four teams, and a lot of sponsorship was sold off of it. This didn't happen yesterday. It's been in motion for a while.

"We're starting to see a lot of alignment and really, the reality of the situation is to be able to perform at a high level, you have to have more resources than a single-car team can put together. That's what you're seeing in the garage area right now."

Yates has seen the evolution of the economics of the sport first-hand. Yates Racing rejected a 2007 partnership with open-wheel's Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing, which led to Doug Yates and Max Jones taking over ownership and trying to rebuild the program.

"Sometimes in that search, you try to make things work that just don't come together and you have to abort that and go with a new plan," Yates said. "The plan we have now, with the encouragement of Ford Motor Company and the support and resources of Roush Fenway, is a great situation for Doug Yates and Max Jones, and I couldn't ask for more."

Even if Yates Racing starts off 2009 without full-time sponsorship, Yates said the foundation has already been laid.

"We're not going to be in the same spot, because our company has a year under our belts," Yates said. "At that time, we barely had teams together to get to the racetrack. And no relationship with sponsors that existed. We've built a lot of relationships. We're fortunate to have a dozen sponsors come on board this year to help us.

"So I don't feel like we'll be back in that position. We may still be hunting for some sort of sponsorship to fill the car, but we're way further along. It may be a two-year process, maybe more, but Yates Racing is committed to get back in a prominent position in the NASCAR garage."