LAS VEGAS — Carson Kvapil reeled in Corey Day and put up one hell of a fight for the win in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Unfortunately for the JR Motorsports driver, the spoils of Vegas victory fell Day’s way by 0.287 seconds instead after a thrilling exchange in the series’ third race of The Chase presented by Mobil 1.
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Day and Kvapil exchanged the lead at the start/finish line four times across the final 11 laps, each pass appearing like a heavyweight punch. The closing circuits produced a stunning show worthy of a spot on the Las Vegas Strip: Kvapil and Day banged doors approaching the white flag to begin the final lap around the 1.5-mile circuit, with Day rocketing around the outside as Kvapil protected the bottom lane. Both drivers got sideways loose exiting Turn 2 with Day even smacking the outside wall before drawing back even with Kvapil.
The theatrics continued into Turns 3 and 4 and both took their preferred lanes. Day ricocheted off the wall again, and Kvapil could only watch as the No. 17 car drove away from him to score the win as Kvapil was forced to settle for second place.
“First things first, I’m bummed out, right?” Kvapil said. “It’s hard to run that good and be that close and lead a few of them towards the end and not win the race, but just part of it. I feel like all the guys on on this Bass Pro Shops Claire’s Technology Chevrolet with Hendrick Engines under the hood gave us a really fast car. And I felt like we never had the the lead position I guess to drive away or to defend, but we were always right there and in the top three once we got to race. And we seemed like we were always chasing people so it was apparent that it was going to be really hard to pass him.”
Day ultimately made it impossible for Kvapil’s advances to stick, but that didn’t stop Kvapil from trying. Still, Kvapil, a two-time winner this season, was left second-guessing his decision to stay low all race without giving the high lane a try late.
“At the end, I felt like for me, my bottom of 1 and 2 was our strong suit,” Kvapil said. “We would really gain wrapping the line down there and I could get back to the gas and get to his inside and have him have to have him make a decision in 3 and 4, but he did a really good job in 3 and 4 ripping the fence there. I didn’t know whether he was going to go to the fence or if he was just going to, I guess, run right beside my door and try to get me freed up on the bottom. But he did a good job running the top and didn’t make a mistake.”
Despite the disappointment of defeat, Kvapil was able to take a brief moment to acknowledge the fun he had racing Day after an intense, side-by-side battle lap after lap.
“I’m sure it was good,” Kvapil said. “From my seat, I didn’t like it as much as probably some others did. But no, this car that we have in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series really puts on a good show, and it’s so much fun to drive these cars. That whole last run there, I felt like I was just hanging on, and there was a few times where it almost looped around on me and sliding the back a bunch, and just a lot of fun racing these things. I’m sure it puts on a good show. Whenever the drivers have fun, everyone sitting in the stands or watching on the couch feels the same way about it. So really cool. Obviously, would have loved to come out of there with the win, but either way, good race and we kept it pretty clean. It was cool.”
Perhaps lessening the sting was Kvapil’s climb in the points standings, slicing his deficit to points leader Sheldon Creed by roughly half: Kvapil entered third in points, 37 points back; he leaves second in points just 19 points behind Creed. That jump was aided by issues for JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, who was collected in a Lap 54 crash and fell from second to fourth in the standings.
“Obviously, having a good day is is the biggest thing, and whenever the people you’re racing for points don’t have the best days, that really helps too,” Kvapil said. “So obviously, don’t wish that upon them. But at the same time, it’s part of this Chase we have here. Some people are going to need to have bad days for you to be able to prevail and to fall back at that points gap or extend the points lead or whatever the situation it is.
“I mean we’ve got some wild cards coming up, especially with Talladega, Martinsville coming up. Just never know how those are going to go. So it’s hard to have a bad day before you get to one of those races. So for us and our 1 team, we’re just trying to have good consistent days and not make any mistakes to where we get to those races and we don’t have to worry so much about being super close on points.”