Travis Kvapil: Wisconsin Short-Track Racer Who Won the 2003 Truck Title

Travis Kvapil is a former American stock car driver from Wisconsin who won the 2003 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship. He later raced in the Cup Series for several teams, including Penske, PPI, Roush and Yates, and his most recent NASCAR start came at Martinsville in 2019. His best-known result remains that Truck title, which he won in the last race of a close points battle.

Kvapil was born on March 1, 1976, and grew up in Wisconsin, where he learned to work on cars in his father's garage. He took that mechanical background with him as he moved from local short tracks to national touring series.

How did Kvapil get into racing?

Kvapil began racing in 1992 at sixteen, at Rockford Speedway in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series. He won the American Short Tracker track championship there in 1994. In 1995 he stepped up to super late models at Madison International Speedway, a half-mile nicknamed Wisconsin's fastest, and was named track Rookie of the Year.

His progress at Madison continued the following year, when he won the track's Late Model championship. At twenty he became the youngest driver ever to win that title at the track.

He then moved to the ARTGO Series, a Midwest asphalt short-track tour, where he finished in the top ten in points each year from 1998 to 2000.

A Wisconsin short-track racer who won a Truck title on the final lap of a close points battle, then spent years in the Cup Series.

How did Kvapil win the 2003 Truck championship?

Kvapil made his Truck Series debut in 2001 for Addington Racing in the No. 60 CAT Rental Stores Chevrolet. He won his first race in his 21st start, the Silverado 350 at Texas Motor Speedway. He finished fourth in the driver standings that year, with eighteen top-tens, and won Rookie of the Year. He also made a Busch Series start that year for Richard Childress Racing at Kentucky, where he struggled before flipping his car late in the race.

In 2002 he won again, taking the O'Reilly race at Memphis Motorsports Park. He finished ninth in points with fourteen top-tens. Funding problems at Addington then pushed him to Steve Coulter's Xpress Motorsports team for 2003, where he drove the No. 16 IWX MotorFreight Chevrolet.

The 2003 season was a consistent one. He won at Bristol Motor Speedway and recorded 22 top-tens in 25 races, an 88 percent top-ten rate. He also completed 99.9 percent of his laps and missed only one lap all season.

The title was settled at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Kvapil passed Gaughan and Musgrave in points during the race, and once Gaughan wrecked and Musgrave was black-flagged, he was champion.

What did Kvapil achieve with Toyota in 2004?

Ahead of 2004 Kvapil teamed with Alexander Meshkin in the No. 24 Toyota, sponsored by Line-X and eBay Bang! Racing. His first win that year came at Michigan International Speedway, the first top-tier NASCAR win for Toyota. Two months later he won at New Hampshire International Speedway.

That same year he also won his first pole in trucks, qualifying on top for the American Racing Wheels 200 at California Speedway. He finished eighth in the final driver standings, a strong result for a team that had only recently joined the series with a manufacturer partner.

The Michigan and New Hampshire wins were the high points of that season.

How did Kvapil's Penske and PPI Cup years go?

Kvapil's Cup career began at the end of 2004, when he made his first NEXTEL Cup start at Martinsville Speedway in the No. 06 Mobil 1 Dodge for Penske Racing. He made three more starts in that car as preparation for a full-time role, which came in 2005 in Penske's No. 77 Kodak Dodge.

His first Cup top-ten came in 2005 at Bristol, where he finished seventh, and a second followed at Phoenix in the Checker Auto Parts 500. Those two finishes left him 33rd in points. The Penske No. 77 team temporarily disbanded when Kodak pulled out of its sponsorship at the end of the season.

He signed with PPI Motorsports for 2006 and drove the No. 32 Tide Chevrolet. His best finishes that season came at Kansas Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway, each a 19th-place result. He finished 36th in points. PPI shut down after 2006 because it could not find a sponsor to replace Tide, and it had no manufacturer commitment for 2007.

What did Kvapil do with Roush and Yates?

In 2007 Jack Roush offered him a seat in the No. 6 Ford F-150 in the Truck Series, replacing Mark Martin, who moved to Ginn Racing. Roush said he was pleased to have signed a driver of Kvapil's calibre, pointing to his Truck title and two years of Cup experience. Kvapil responded with four victories, three poles, eight top-five finishes and twelve top-ten runs, and he finished sixth in the Truck standings.

Roush then helped him return to the Cup Series with Yates Racing for 2008. He drove the No. 28 Yates Ford Fusion, and the team struggled to find full-time sponsorship. K&N Filters backed the Daytona 500 entry, and Zaxby's sponsored the team at Atlanta. Kvapil also ran a one-race deal with Northern Tool and Equipment, which took him to sixth at Talladega, his best Cup finish.

Later in 2008 he finished eighth at Las Vegas in an unsponsored car, and he picked up another top-ten at Darlington. He won the pole at the fall Talladega race, the last pole award for Yates Racing, and he finished 23rd in points despite the lack of a full sponsor.

What happened to Kvapil's Cup seats from 2009 to 2013?

Yates Racing closed after six races in 2009, and Kvapil qualified cars for several teams without a full-time ride for the rest of the year. In 2010 he returned to a full-time ride with Front Row Motorsports in the Long John Silver's Ford, which changed numbers during the year depending on its owner points position. In 2011 he drove the No. 38 for most of the Cup races for FRM.

In 2011 he also signed with Randy Moss Motorsports for the Truck championship, but he was released after ten races when the team chose Todd Bodine instead. In 2012 he left FRM for BK Racing, driving the No. 93 Toyota and finishing 27th in points. He also drove for RAB Racing in the season-opening Truck event.

2013 was harder. He ended the year 31st in points, with five top-twenty finishes against nine DNFs, five of them blown engines. BK Racing released him shortly before the 2014 season, and that ended his regular Cup employment.

What is Kvapil's Cup record in full?

Kvapil's Cup seasons were spread across several teams and sponsors. The table below sets out his main team and result for each year he raced in the series, so the changes in equipment and results are easy to follow.

What did Kvapil do after 2013?

In 2014 Kvapil ran a limited Cup schedule for Go FAS Racing and drove a truck for MAKE Motorsports. In August he took over from John Wes Townley in the No. 05 Athenian Motorsports Toyota for the Michigan Truck race. He also ran late-season Cup races for Circle Sport and tied his best career finish of sixth at Talladega.

In 2015 he made plans to attempt a qualifying run at Atlanta, but theft at a hotel parking lot took his car, hauler and truck, and he withdrew. For most of that year he raced in the Truck Series with MAKE Motorsports' No. 1 Chevrolet. Later he tried a few races for Curtis Key's team, which struggled to qualify, and he failed to make the field in all of his attempts.

In 2016 he ran a full Truck season with MAKE, which had become Beaver Motorsports. He finished fifth in the season-opening Daytona race and made Xfinity Series starts for B. J. McLeod Motorsports at Richmond and Talladega. He continued in the No. 50 truck for Beaver in 2017, and he also drove for MB Motorsports and Bolen Motorsports that year.

He attempted only two races in 2018, and he finished last at Daytona. He made one start in 2019, at Martinsville, and that was his final NASCAR appearance.

What is Kvapil's personal life and public record?

Kvapil is married to Jennifer, and the couple have three children, Kelsey, Carson and Caden. Carson races in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series for JR Motorsports and DGM Racing.

Kvapil competed against fellow Wisconsin native Matt Kenseth at Madison International Speedway. He is an avid Green Bay Packers fan, like Kenseth. During the 2006 Cup season he and his No. 32 Tide car appeared in an episode of the soap opera Guiding Light.

In October 2013 he was arrested after a domestic dispute and charged with assault and false imprisonment. He was released on bail and raced the following weekend at Charlotte. In January 2014 he accepted a plea deal, and the case was dismissed after two years' probation, community service and an anger management class.