Statesville, N.C. (May 10, 2011) - Travis Kvapil heads to Dover (Del.) International Speedway with momentum from having a fast car and a solid run at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. The No. 38 team moved up a spot in owners' points after its 26th-place finish last weekend and looks to continue climbing as they prepare for Sunday's FedEx 400 Benefiting Autism Speaks.
The No. 38 car will have a different look this week, sporting the A&W All American Food restaurants paint scheme for the first time this season. The car will also carry the "Autism Speaks" puzzle-piece decal in support of the weekend's autism awareness efforts.
Kvapil has eight career starts at the one-mile, high-banked oval. His best career finish at the track dubbed the "Monster Mile" is 11th (2008).
Comments from A&W All American Food driver Travis Kvapil on Dover:
"I always like going to Dover. It's a very intense racetrack. It's a one-mile, high-banked track where you're hitting speeds of 170 and 180 miles an hour heading off into the corner. And it's concrete, so it has a lot of grip. You can definitely have some 'have at it' moments at Dover. It's a really fun racetrack to drive. It seems like whenever somebody gets into trouble, they get turned sideways coming off the corner. That usually stacks everybody up pretty good coming to the straight-aways, and the straight-aways are pretty narrow. So, you've got to be careful to keep it out of trouble.
"The key thing is to have a car that turns well through the middle of the corner, and that's obviously something we've been working on at Front Row Motorsports - bringing a good-handling car to the racetrack right off the truck so we don't have that far to go during practice. With our No. 38 car being outside the top 35, we have to focus quite a bit on qualifying trim in practice, but we also want to make sure we spend time on race trim, too, so we know what we've got for the race. So, the closer we come set-up-wise from the get-go, the more time we have to work through everything else.
"I've been working with Jay Guy, my new crew chief, for several weeks now, and we're definitely seeing some improvements at the track. We had a really good qualifying run last week at Darlington - we started 21st - and our we ran pretty good in the race, too. We had some bad luck, not getting some cautions and 'Lucky Dog' calls to work in our favor, so that hurt us through no fault of our own. But we were competitive racing the cars we needed to race, and we're going to keep improving as we keep working together week after week.
"The biggest thing with concrete racing is that it doesn't change as much with the heat. When asphalt cools off, it gains a lot of grip. Concrete doesn't seem to change as much as asphalt. One thing you will notice at Dover, though, like you will at Bristol, is as the tires build temperature and air pressure, the front tires will chatter through the small bumps in the concrete. You can really feel that. So, you have to have a good spring and bump-stop package in the front and a good shock package."
