A second win in three weeks gives Travis Kvapil something extra special to celebrate this holiday week. Kvapil won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Memphis Motorsports Park while his teammates Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth were the top Ford drivers in both NASCAR NEXTEL Cup and Busch series' races at New Hampshire International Speedway.
Kvapil's truck win did not come without some controversy as he made contact with Brad Keselowski on the track, allowing Kvapil to pass by.
"It was a great race," said Kvapil. "I'm a big, big Brad Keselowski fan. I told him in Daytona pre-season testing to keep digging and that he'd find something and I'm a believer in his talent. I did not intend to spin him around, but getting down to it; his truck really was not getting through the middle of the corner at all. [It was] really slowing down, almost to a stop in the middle of the corner. Getting down to it, I had to go, had to make something happen. I bumped him a little bit, just trying to get him to go up a lane, and get under him. I ended up turning him around. As soon as I hit him, I backed off and hoping he could get it gathered up and wasn't able to. I feel bad that I turned Brad around. That's definitely not the way I wanted to do it. And he owes me one down the road."
Kvapil sits in fourth place in the points, 263 behind leader Mike Skinner.
"Our team has come a long way since races two, three and four of the season. We were not a contender at all. We were running 15 th and 16 th and kind of embarrassing Jack Roush. He did an awesome job and sitting us all down. He cut the trucks up for me and got them to the wind tunnel and changed the set-ups for me, adapted to what I needed, and what Erik Darnell needed and Kansas was a big turnaround, where my teammate won the race. Ever since then, we've been rolling."
Edwards made a hard charge at the end of Saturday's Busch Series race, but just did not have enough laps left to make a pass for the win. He finished second and increases his lead in the series to 809 points.
"At the beginning of the race our car was not the fastest car and I'm just really proud of my Scotts Fusion team for making it the fastest car at the end," said Edwards. "It was awesome. If we would have had a caution with 10 to go, or maybe if this was a 205-lap race, I think we could have got him, but we just ran out of time."
The series point's leader battled with eventual race winner Kevin Harvick right down through turn four of the final lap.
"There at the end that was really exciting to be running him down a little bit. I could see him get a little slower and slower as we got closer and closer. That's the exact position we were in last year. I was trying to hold off Kevin Harvick. He's a hard guy to hold off and it was neat to be able to race him again this year. We just turned up one spot short, but on that last corner I just drove it down in there thinking that maybe I could rattle him a little bit and he'll slide up or something, but that's just all I had."
Edwards' Roush Fenway teammate Kenseth was the top Ford driver in Sunday's NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race. Kenseth finished ninth in his No. 17 Fusion, and sits third in the points.
"We ended up passing some cars on pit road and making some adjustments and got [the car] better, but we're not good enough to beat these guys," said Kenseth. "With these cars [cars of tomorrow] it's all about being in the front. It's really hard to come from behind and do much with them."
"We've got a long way to go with these things to compete for wins. They're so sensitive to little things. There are only so many areas you can work, so the areas we can work we're just missing it a little bit. We've got to work on the front suspension and figure out how to make the front ends turn better and then, hopefully, we'll be more competitive."
The NHRA Funny Car Series competed in Norwalk, Ohio this weekend, but the John Force Racing team just couldn't get their Mustangs past the second round. Robert Hight and Ashley Force both were victories in the first round, but both fell in the second while team owner John Force lost in the first round.
"You can agonize about that and compare your run to others, but that's drag racing," said Ashley Force of her runs on Sunday. "Sometimes you need a little bit of luck."
While Hight qualified No. 1 for the fourth time this season, he fell in round two due to a recurring ignition problem.
"I hit the throttle and it didn't go anywhere," said the 2005 NHRA Rookie of the Year. "Then it decided to take off and it slipped the tires. It was slow all the way down the track. I could see him (Mike Ashley) out of the corner of my eye and then my Mustang started eating itself up, so I shut off."
Next weekend the Nextel Cup and Busch competitors head south to Daytona for the holiday weekend along with the Grand-Am Rolex Series while the NHRA competes in Bristol, Tennessee. Mustang drivers in the Koni Challenge Series look for win No. 6 in their race in Watkins Glen this weekend while the GT4 European Cup Mustangs also look for victory this weekend in Oschersleben, Germany.
Via: Ford Motor Co. Press Release