BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Barring the miraculous appearance of sponsor dollars, Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway is the last race this season for Yates Racing's No. 28 Ford.

The car has not been entered for next weekend's event at Martinsville Speedway, team co-owner Max Jones said on Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, adding that driver Travis Kvapil, while still under contract, could take another driving opportunity.

"There isn't a plan to run it after [Bristol] because there isn't any sponsorship," Jones said. "The only thing that's keeping us from going there is we don't have a sponsor. I'm not going to keep Travis from driving for someone else, from making a living."

Following his 18th-place finish at Bristol, in which he spent nearly 20 percent of the race running in the top 15, Kvapil held his head up when he returned to his transporter, where Jones met him, shook his hand and had a brief exchange with his driver.

"We had a great car [Sunday] and quite honestly, as I've said throughout the last couple weeks, I felt more competitive and like I had a car capable of running up front all year long, more so than I did a year ago," Kvapil said. "We've just had bad luck [in 2009] and haven't had the results to show for it. [Sunday] we ran in the top 15 most of the day but got the car a little bit off on one run and that hurt us and got us a lap down.

"I was hoping for a little bit better result to give us something more to sell, but I thought overall we did an OK job. It was fun to drive up through there and race hard. I leave here knowing in every race so far we've had competitive race cars -- but it's gonna be a bummer when we realize it might be the end."

Kvapil said he'd not had the first discussion with another team owner this season.

"No, not at all," Kvapil said. "I mean, I'm under contract to Yates Racing and to be quite honest with you, until [Monday] or Tuesday or whenever they say we're definitely 100 percent sure we ain't going to Martinsville, I'm not giving up. We're making phone calls and dialing for dollars the last couple days -- we got a meeting [Monday] even. So you never know. I'll never say 'die.'"

Jones said the status of the employees that were hired in January to do the No. 28's program was uncertain. He said that when they were hired they were told it was a five-race deal dependent on sponsorship. The No. 28's crew chief, Ben Leslie, is actually Ford Racing's Sprint Cup program manager and will return to solely filling that role.

"We hired, I think it was around 12 guys and I suspect there'll be some attrition through that because I can't afford to carry extra people," Jones said. "They were all guys who had been laid off and were out of work from other teams this winter, so it gave them an opportunity to come in here, and they've all done an unbelievable job.

"They're really a good group of guys and that's the shame of it, to not be able to continue on to run it, as well as we've run."

Jones said that despite not yet being entered, the team could go to Martinsville even by Wednesday of race week, and that the team could be instantly revived later this season if funding became available. (Continued)