Still, even with those hard truths, I can’t help but feel like there’s more at work with the lack of attention being paid to great drivers like David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil. These are guys that truly deserve more time to prove themselves on the racetrack. Gilliland finished 2nd at Infineon Raceway last year, the best race finish between the two Yates Racing drivers for the season.

So what does his effort get him? Only to be left without a ride and on contract with a company who has given the points he earned to the new guy, Bobby Labonte who hasn’t had a top-5 finish since 2006.

While Kvapil still has a ride for 2009 it doesn’t have a sponsor yet (although Golden Corral has signed on to sponsor him in the Daytona 500) and his points have been moved to Paul Menard. Menard has had only two top-10 finishes in his entire Sprint Cup career and Kvapil has had six.

That just doesn’t sit right with me. Frankly I’m pretty disgusted by it. I understand wanting and needing drivers that can succeed and rack up great finishes. I also understand wanting and needing drivers that are marketable. Both of those criteria are needed to secure sponsorships and I know that Gilliland and Kvapil are completely capable of both of those things.

I had the chance to interview them during the 2008 season and you’re not going to find more genuinely nice, honest and hardworking guys. They’re both well-spoken, good-looking guys with beautiful families. They also have the most important thing: the passion and drive to want to win races. They want to put in the work.

So why did Bobby Labonte and Paul Menard suddenly become the new fresh faces of Yates Racing? Because everybody knows who Bobby Labonte is and Paul Menard comes with a built-in sponsor.

I’m not saying that Yates Racing doesn’t value the talent they have in Travis and David. I don’t think they would have signed them on in the first place if they hadn’t. I just think it’s sad that they couldn’t have held on to what they’d accomplished, built on the team success they had from last year and figured out a way to stay loyal to drivers already in their stable.

It’s really sad when the choice of sponsorship over talent rules the day.

The top car on the list was Travis Kvapil’s No. 28 Academy Sports + Outdoors Ford Fusion. Which is probably why I thought the race was on and maybe he was leading, but to find out that Kvapil is on the pole for the AMP Energy 500 is just so awesome! I can’t believe he’s on the pole. It’s so cool. I am so happy for him and his team. I really, truly hope that he and David Gilliland get a good finish out of the race tomorrow. No, not a good finish, a great one!

Talladega is going to be crazy tomorrow and I cannot wait to see what happens!

In other news…

– This has nothing to do with racing but I feel the need to share. You must, I repeat, you must buy the following two CDs: “Only By The Night” by Kings of Leon and “New Surrender” by Anberlin. These bands rock my world in the most wonderful way. I cannot live without music, it’s probably my second most favorite thing in the world behind writing and these guys are amazing. If you’ve never heard Kings of Leon before they’re this sort of modern southern rock band, and Anberlin is indie/alternative rock. Both have great lead singers with beautiful and unique voices. Check them out, you will not be sorry!

This better not affect David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil negatively. I’m just sayin’. I don’t put anything past anyone these days. With the economy being what it is, I would not be surprised if the field of cars for each race next year is down to only 13 teams. Wow, I just thought about that. That would really suck.

I had intended to get this online yesterday but I didn’t get home until late Monday night after driving over 300 miles. Plus Tuesday morning I interviewed retired NASCAR driver and current ESPN racing analyst Dale Jarrett. So when you combine trying to come to terms with the fact that I did indeed speak to THE Dale Jarrett yesterday and the amazing birthday weekend I had at the Auto Club Speedway and the fact that I haven’t been feeling well these past couple of days it has led to me being very late with posting all of this stuff. So bear with me!

I know in part one of this interview I’ve already stated that Travis was super nice but I have to say it again and add that he was honest and forthcoming. I like writing about the Yates Racing guys because I feel like they’re in a very good position to do great things in their careers, their stories are just beginning really, and it’s nice to know that in meeting Travis it didn’t cause me to lose my belief that a win for him and his teammate are just around the corner.

—
Me: Looking at this year as a whole, do you feel like you guys have a chance to pull out a win this year?

Kvapil: Yeah, I think we do. When the year started we didn’t really know what our expectations were, really what we all had here. This team has really been rebuilt in this last year and [there have been] a lot of changes, new cars, a lot of new people, new driver/crew chief combinations, so you start the year off kind of not really knowing where you’re going to fall in. We’ve had cars, once or twice throughout the year that were capable of winning — both myself and the 38 — and we just haven’t quite got it done. It’s tough, we need to be more consistent, run at the top ten every week before I feel like we can truly be a contender for the win. But we see it a lot in the sport where teams that run kind of in the middle of the pack can get a win here and there. I definitely think we can run better than middle of the pack most of the year but I guess that’s kind of what I’m getting at, we definitely have a shot.

Me: What has it been like to have David [Gilliland] as a teammate? He’s said that you guys like the same things in your cars.

Kvapil: It’s been great. I didn’t know David until this season. Definitely the things we put into our race cars set-up wise it translates to the 28 and the 38, it works for both of us. Another cool thing, off the race track our lives and how we got involved in racing and our families is all very similar. We’re married with kids and we grew up around the race track, worked on cars our whole lives, our parents own shops and things like that. So I think we relate to each other really well on that side too and we feel comfortable working with each other. It’s great that we find similarities in our race cars, so it’s been really good.

Me: Speaking of your family, how much do they mean to your racing and what is like being away from them and having such a crazy schedule? How do you deal with that?

Kvapil: It’s tough. I have two kids in school now and it’s hard to spend as much time as you’d like with them and see them do their activities and sports and things like that. But definitely Monday through Thursday I’m with them as much as I can be, and a lot of the races around the Charlotte area they all come to, especially in the summer time when they’re not in school. They understand, ya know, this is what I do and we definitely try to make it work as well as we can, especially in the summer time we do a lot of activities and things together to have that special time when we can.

Me: So speaking of your fans, I know that you and David both have message boards that are very active and I know they all really support you. What do your fans mean to you and do you ever go online to the message boards?

Kvapil: Yea, I check it out quite a bit, couple times a week, just to see what they’re talking about, see what their interests are. I definitely don’t post as much as I need to, only a couple times a year if that. It means a lot to me, it really does. To be a Cup driver was something that I never dreamed of growing up, to have fans and people that pull for me, I just never envisioned it. So it’s really cool to have our special group that pulls for me and it’s just really neat. You can’t really describe it. I remember when I first started to experience it, you wanted to get to know these people on a more personal basis and the more the sport grows in popularity it’s tough to have that. But it’s nice, they do have a couple gatherings a couple times a year and it’s always nice to stop in and see them and make sure they know I appreciate their support.

Me: And they’ve been very involved in the whole sponsor issue. They’re very aware of that and how much it affects you and the team.

Kvapil: That’s really good. We’ve had several sponsors on the car and it truly does make a difference when they email the sponsor and tell them we bought your product because you’re on this car and we support Travis. It really does make a difference. The sponsors they see that, they get that and they realize there is value in sponsoring Yates Racing. They definitely need to keep that up, that’s a good thing and we really do appreciate it.

Me: Your truck experience, does that help you in Cup? How much does it help?

Kvapil: I think biggest thing is with this new car it has some similarities of what the trucks did have in aerodynamics and things like that. I guess the biggest thing the Truck Series offered me was an opportunity to get on all of these tracks, most of these tracks in a lower-tier division. The Truck Series offers a lot of veteran drivers, ya know, they’ve got [Mike] Skinner, and [Ron] Hornaday, and [Jack] Sprague, and Todd Bodine, ya got [Johnny] Benson and [Ted] Musgrave. All these guys that have been Cup racing in the past, they’re fierce competitors and they race really, really hard and it’s different than the Nationwide Series.

The Nationwide Series seems to have a lot of young guys and the Truck Series has a lot of these veteran drivers that are, I mean, they race really, really hard. It’s great to have to go up against that competition and race those guys week in and week out and race for a Championship. It taught me a lot, how to race competitively, how to race hard, be respectful of each other and not tear up your equipment. The Truck Series was a great stepping stone for my career for sure.

Me: With Silly Season going on, it seems like all year long nowadays, how much do you think about that? Doug Yates says that he wants to keep you and David, but how much do you think about that? How secure can you possibly you feel? Do you feel like this is where you want to be?

Kvapil: I feel pretty secure; this is definitely where I want to be. I really enjoy what Yates Racing has built and our alliance with the Roush Fenway group has been phenomenal with their support. But it still comes down to the bottom line, ya gotta have sponsors and I understand that. They’ve done a great job piecing it together this year for both teams. I just really hope that some of these people that we’ve had on the car we can get them on board for next year and we can keep it going.

I feel pretty optimistic about that, but I try not to worry about it. I mean, the biggest thing is we go out there and perform and run good. That makes us much more sellable. Sponsors are obviously much more interested in teams that are running up front than in the back. So that’s been our focus from day one, is to go out there and perform and let that take care of itself. That’s kind of been our objective all year and for the most part we’ve accomplished that. We fell into a little bit of a slump there for a few weeks and we dropped back in points a little bit, but we’re going to rally hard and hopefully get ourselves back into top twenty in points before the season is over and hopefully in doing so we’ll have some color on the car next year.

Travis was really nice and super easy to talk to, definitely a good guy with a realistic understanding of the sport of racing. I should confess that the real reason I’m breaking this interview up into two posts is that I forgot to bring my laptop charger. It never fails; I always forget something when I go on a trip. When I went to Chicagoland I forgot my toothbrush.

And so here’s the first part of my session with Travis. Part two should be posted sometime Tuesday after I get back home. I’ll also have a ton of other posts to share about my Labor Day weekend in general.

—
Me: What are the keys to this racetrack? What’s the key to being successful here?

Kvapil: California is a lot like all the other tracks we go to where you gotta have a car that really turns good in the middle of the corner and you get back to the gas really early, very similar to Michigan. Your car’s gotta be kind of nice and free and neutral and you gotta use that throttle peddle a lot on the exit. It used to be, with the older car, we really had a lot of downforce built into the car. With the new cars we’re just kind of locked into what we have. So really the aerodynamics aren’t as critical as what they used to be, I mean they still are, but it’s just that we can’t do nothing about it right now. You still have to have a good motor, good horsepower and it seems like with all of the big tracks fuel mileage plays a factor as well a lot of the times.

Me: So I know you haven’t been out there yet today, but do you feel like you guys have a chance at having a really good run today?

Kvapil: I think we will. I’m excited about it. We had a really good car here in February. We ran in the top 10 for most of the day and we had some issues in the race, we ground the splitter off the front of the car and we lost a couple laps trying to repair that. We had a good race here until that point in February. Very similar to Michigan; both our Michigan races we finished in the top twenty, ran competitively. Some of our best races this year have been on the mile and a half, two mile banked race tracks and this fits right in that mold. Definitely optimistic and looking forward to getting the weekend going and definitely feel like we could contend for a top ten.

I really want to do something awesome next year but I’m not quite sure how to frame it and where to start. About a million ideas run through my head everyday. Most of which involve an Airstream trailer, my own show and a driver to take me everywhere so that I only have to worry about how I could possibly interview the likes of Dale Earnhardt Jr. without sounding like a nut job. Whether the show is a podcast, vodcast or reality show is still up in the air.

Of course the real problem with all of this is that pesky little thing called money. I think you might have heard of it. I truly think a major oil company should sponsor me (and all of my exploits) next year. It just makes sense. I’d feel a lot better about paying $4 a gallon if Shell, Sunoco, Exxon or Chevron was footing the bill for me to live the dream next year. Wouldn’t you? Okay, maybe you wouldn’t but you’d get the benefit of it by reading all of my funny stories about life on the road as a crazy California girl NASCAR fan.

In other news…

– Bristol Motor Speedway is Eva Busch’s favorite race track and she had this to say about it:

“It was the very first track I ever visited and that trip to Bristol will always stand out as being so special,” Eva explained. “Kurt and I hadn’t been dating that long back in 2003 when he invited me to come to Bristol for the night race (on Aug. 23, 2003). I took him up on the offer, but really didn’t know what to expect. Having the Bristol night race as a first-race experience was impressive enough, but to be there and see Kurt win in my first time to the track was extra-special. There’s always something special about coming to Bristol and I think there will always be. The night race there is just unbelievable. You have to experience it to believe it. As exciting and impressive as it is on TV, there’s just no way to do it justice. You really have to be there to witness it live. I guess you could say that I got spoiled pretty fast at Bristol. Kurt won the night race in 2003 and we came back for the spring race of 2004 and he won that one, too. I know just how much Kurt loves the track and that affection for Bristol has certainly rubbed off on me through the years, that’s for sure.”

– Travis Kvapil will be driving KITT this weekend at Bristol. Suhweet! Okay, not exactly but his car will promote the NBC show “Knight Rider,” which is still really cool:

Yates Racing and NBC announced today that in a unique partnership between Ford Motor Company and NBC, Travis Kvapil will pilot the No. 28 “Knight Rider” Ford for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 23rd. The sponsorship by NBC of the No. 28 Ford comes in anticipation of the television series premiere of NBC’s “Knight Rider” on Wednesday, September 24th at 8:00 p.m. EST.

On the heels of NBC’s hit movie, the iconic 1980′s television classics comes roaring back to life as a reinvented, updated and super-charged action series showcasing the new KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand). As absolutely the coolest car ever created, KITT is equipped with “AI” (artificial intelligence) that is capable of hacking into almost any system. The vehicle’s weapon system matches that of a jet fighter, its body is capable of transforming into other vehicles, and the car uses sophisticated holographic imagery to elude villains.

“This is such an awesome sponsor for our team at Bristol,” commented Kvapil. “The television series ‘Knight Rider’ is a show that everyone can get hooked on. I think it’s really cool that NBC has chosen to reinvent the series for the Fall line-up. The best part about the show was always the car, KITT, and this is amazing that I get to drive a version of KITT for the night race at Bristol. It’s every guy’s dream to feel like they are an action hero and I get to have that chance under the lights of Bristol with our No. 28 ‘Knight Rider’ Ford.”

I think you’ll find that what he has to say is truly refreshing. Here is someone who is determined to see his dreams realized and is all about doing the work necessary to make that happen. And frankly I can’t think of a better reason to sponsor the guy.

Oh and as you read this you should know that I am very aware of the fact that I used the word “feel” waaay too much.

Me: How do you feel about Yates Racing as a whole, as an organization? Do you feel like you guys are definitely moving in the right direction in that the base is becoming more and more solid to become a Championship organization?

Gilliland: Yeah, I think it takes time. Time is what is going to help us the most. I’m very proud of Yates Racing and where we’re at at this time, but ya know we’re not where we want to be ultimately and within time I think we will. I think we’ve got great people in place. I think Travis [Kvapil] and I work well together as teammates. Our cars are getting better and faster, and as Travis and I go to racetracks for a second time in the COT cars we’re able to express more of what we need. I think that’s the biggest thing. I think we’ve got the right people in place, I think it’s just a time issue right now.

Me: So speaking of your teammate Travis [Kvapil], what is your relationship like with him and how much time do you spend together in terms of talking about your cars and the racetracks that are coming up?

Gilliland: A lot. I mean, I talk to him more than I have any teammate that I’ve ever had. We’re good friends. We like a lot of the same things in our race cars to make them go fast and I think that’s a key, key element in having a good solid team. I think us working together has enabled us both to run better this year. And hopefully we can get some primary sponsors nailed down so we can continue working together in the future.

Me: This is your second full year in the Cup series what does it feel like to have fans? They already have a name for themselves: “Gilly’s Gang.” What does that feel like?

Gilliland: It’s awesome, it’s really cool. Sometimes you go and you’ll have a bad day and you come home and read the message board or read letters and stuff that your fans send you. It keeps you upbeat and makes you realize how lucky — sometimes it’s easy to forget that we’re very lucky and fortunate to be able to do what we do. The competitive side of us takes over often, coming in second at Infineon, it was good but we didn’t win, ya know? But to have the fans that we have and the support from them, it definitely keeps us going for sure because there are days when you get down and our fans always help us bounce back.

Me: Speaking of your message boards, do you go on them quite often?

Gilliland: Yea I do, I go on them very often. I post every once in a while, but definitely go on and read it. Just try and keep up with what’s going on with our fans for sure. I mean, I go on there at least two, three times a week.

Me: Do you ever go online just to read what other people are saying about you, like other writers or message boards or anything like that?

Gilliland: No, not really. If there’s articles that are written about me sometimes I can look and see, but mainly if there’s something real bad my PR person won’t let me know about it. But really haven’t had too much negative stuff. We’ve just been trying to keep our nose clean and build respect with other drivers and just keep progressing in the series.

Me: From my point of view it feels like the media hasn’t paid you enough attention, I mean you and Travis have been running really well this whole year and yet it still feels like they’re slow to talk about you guys. How does that feel? And do you kind of like being the guy that people aren’t necessarily looking at every week? How do you feel about that?

Gilliland: Yeah, I think Yates Racing deserves a lot of credit. Like I said, I think from where we were at in December, moving shops, getting a bunch of new employees, a new crew chief, building new race cars and everything, where we’re at and with as competitive as the series is I think Yates Racing deserves a lot of credit. People realize it, people do see it and I think like you said they’re kind of slow to give us too much credit. But ya know, hopefully, like I told Travis we get out and win some races or finish in the top-5 and they can’t help but shoot a little love our way. Sonoma was awesome and hopefully we can have more runs like that in the near future.

Me: What have you learned about yourself since coming into the Cup series? What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

Gilliland: The biggest thing that I’ve kind of done and learned is that it takes a lot of self-discipline. I go to the gym every week, every day when I’m home. It’s a full-time job, 24 hours a day to do what we do. It’s not a deal where you just go to the racetrack on Thursday and do your deal and come home Sunday and have a vacation for three days. It’s a 24 hour a day deal. You’ve got to be very, very committed.

Me: So what was it like after finishing second at Infineon — which was awesome by the way, I was there and I was so excited for you — what was it like to have Jeff Gordon say that he was impressed by you, that he liked you? What did that feel like for you?

Gilliland: Yea, it’s awesome. Jeff Gordon is someone who I definitely looked up to throughout my racing career and have him go out and say what he said that feels good. Tony Stewart said the same thing after the race and that’s good. Those guys don’t give you anything, you have to earn it and I feel like we’ve done a good job of earning their respect along the way.

Me: And also Kyle Busch said that he ran some races for your family back in the day and that you two are friends. Tell me a little bit about that and do you think the reception he gets from the fans is, uhm, what’s the word, is, does he get a bad rap? Is he just misunderstood like he says he is?

Gilliland: Yeah, I think so. I get along well with Kyle. He ran a couple of races for my team that I ran on the West Coast. I got a car ready for him to drive a couple times. He actually helped me get my first truck ride with Billy Ballew Motorsports at Vegas. He was a big part of putting that deal together and helping me do that. We get along well. I think he’s a great race car driver and I think he’s aggressive and I think you need to be to win races at this level. I think the fans are going to love some people and they’re going to hate some people but overall he’s a good guy.

Me: I interviewed your wife Michelle earlier this year and she was so awesome. She said that she was the one who went up to you to introduce herself when you two met for the first time. What do you remember from that meeting and how much does she mean to your racing and your career?

Gilliland: A lot, definitely. I’m a shy, kind of stand-offish kind of guy and she’s definitely the opposite, she’s outgoing and it’s why we get along so well. She came up, sat down next to me and started talking to me. I think that was 13 years ago and I’m glad she did. She’s been a great part of my racing, always very supportive of me. Being married to a racer might look glamorous from the outside, or exciting or whatever, but there’s so much time that goes into doing what we do that she makes a lot of sacrifices, her and my family, for me to do what I love and do my job. So it’s not easy by no means and I just have to give her a lot of credit.

Me: What would you want people to know about you as a race car driver and what’s your philosophy on racing? What kind of race car driver are you?

Gilliland: The biggest thing to me is that I’m here because of very, very hard work and just a never give up attitude and dedication to doing what I love and what I want to do. I feel like that’s why I’m here. Nobody was here with millions of dollars buying me a ride at any time or at any point in my career. I think it’s important for people to know that things like that can still happen with hard work. And that’s the message I like to try to get across to people is just to relay that message that if you work hard enough at something and are dedicated to it enough that anything is possible and anything can happen. I think that’s probably the biggest thing.

Everybody lined up and then they introduced Gavin DeGraw as a country singer. That was funny. I think I snorted. And then a few of the guys from the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard team said, in unison, “Who???” I think I snorted at that too. Ahh, good times, good times. Later on I caught sight of Gavin taking a seat in Kurt Busch’s pit box next to Kurt’s wife Eva.

I watched the race start and then went back to the media center to eat dinner. That’s another great thing about being in the media center, free food. It really is a great benefit; I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to eat the whole time I was at the track.

I didn’t want to watch the whole race from the lunchroom, and I didn’t want to stand on pit road all night killing my lower back in the process, so I walked down the road to the grassy area next to the infield tunnel. I sat on the grass and watched the cars roll through the space between turns three and four. It was a great place to sit and watch the cars go by. Obviously I had no idea what was really going on with the cars and the drivers that drove them. But I knew that nothing wonderful was happening for Dale Jr. or the Yates Racing guys ’cause their numbers weren’t on the pylon. Well they were but just waaaay down at the bottom where it scrolled through the running order two places at a time.

As odd as it may seem it was really peaceful sitting there. I had earplugs in and it dulled the roar of the engines nicely. I waited until they hit 200 laps before walking back to the pits. I stood behind the pits for the Dave Blaney and the No. 22 Caterpillar Toyota. At one point the crew chief and some other dude were visibly pissed about something that happened to their car because it caused both of them to take their anger out on the pit box.

The end of the race was a rollercoaster. I was up when Carl Edwards took the lead and then down when he lost it. I was up when Jimmie took the lead and then I stayed down when he lost it too. If only he could have held on. If only.

I went into the garage and took pictures of Dale Jr. talking to a TV crew. Carl was next to him doing the same. I caught some of the press conference with Jimmie and Kevin Harvick and then I left just before it was over. I saw both of them as they walked out the back of the media center.

Yet again getting out of the track was a breeze. So remember how I said that I thought I had finally gotten the hang of driving in Chicagoland? Well of course on my last trek I realized I had never taken the right way back to my hotel. I had never gone the exact route my navigation system had initially specified. At some point I had always taken a wrong turn and then it recalculated to get me on the right path. This ended up being kind of a cool thing.

There are two things Joliet is famous for in my mind (besides being the home of Chicagoland Speedway of course). One, it’s the hometown of the very first America’s Next Top Model winner, Adrianne Curry (wife of the guy who played Peter on The Brady Bunch) and two, it’s also home to a ginormous prison that they used to film FOX’s drama Prison Break.

So going into my trip I wanted to see the prison. On my final, and correct, drive back to the hotel I got to see Joliet Correctional Center! The prison isn’t open anymore, they closed it back in 2002. But ok, so it was at night and actually really kinda freaky — especially when you add in the “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers” sign that sits across the street from it — but it was also cool!

So that was my Chicagoland weekend. The next day, Sunday, I checked into a hotel in downtown Chicago and went to the Gavin Rossdale concert at the House of Blues. At some point I’m going to write about that experience in my other blog.

I had so much fun at the races. On the plane to San Francisco I knew that I wanted to go home, ’caused I missed it and my family, but at the same time I really, really wished I could go to Indy next week.

Car chief and rear tire carrier Ron Malec before the start of the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, July 12, 2008. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

The crew for the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet before the start of the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, July 12, 2008. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

The pit crew for the No. 22 Caterpillar Toyota prepare to go over the wall during the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, July 12, 2008. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. speaks with media after the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, July 12, 2008. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

I have to say that I’ve been thinking about the guys on pit crews a lot lately, mostly because you don’t hear much about them individually or even as a group. Drivers constantly talk about how it’s a team sport and they couldn’t do it without their guys but how much do we really know about the men on these teams? And how much do they know about their fans? Unless you’re on the crew for the most popular drivers it’s hard to know who’s rooting for you or if they are at all.

On television in pre-race shows they sometimes do profiles of this crew member or that one for some special or unique story, but it’s never a consistent study of who these guys are and how they feel about their teams chances each week. I suppose it would be really hard from a PR standpoint to control all of those voices but it would be refreshing to hear them.

So with that being said I took the chance to talk to the pit crew guys — that were there — from Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland’s teams. I asked them if they ever went online to their team website to see what their fans were saying. They all said that they don’t go online and some guessed that maybe the comments were negative.

I told them that they had a bunch of fans out there that supported them 100%. So the comments from these guys surprised me and got me thinking. Since these guys don’t have time to spend online searching for what people are saying, I think that if you’re a Gilliland, Kvapil or Yates Racing fan you should send a letter to the crew members. Don’t send it to Travis or David — send it to the guys on the team. Just to be clear I’m not saying you shouldn’t write to the drivers too, you totally should, but don’t forget about the other guys that make up the team.

Crew members from the No. 28 California Highway Patrol Ford Fusion team (from left to right): Tire Runner John Horn, Catchcan Bobby Grant, and Front Tire Changer Cory DeMarco.

Crew members from the No. 38 FreeCreditReport.com Ford Fusion team

First of all, it was free and you can’t beat free.

Second, everything was open. By open I mean seriously open. I parked my car in the garage area, literally next to the haulers. The garage stalls were right across from my car. When it’s a race weekend, everything is blocked off and you have to have a garage pass. There was none of that yesterday. There were no Hot or Cold garage warnings. If I had the balls to do it I totally could have walked right into someone’s garage and been like “Hey, what’s up? How’s the car handling today?”

That being said you really had to watch yourself ’cause the guys were coming in and out of the garage left and right and there was no one around with a whistle to tell you to get out of the way. Case in point a man with two kids was walking towards me in the grandstand/victory lane area completely oblivious to the grumbling race car right behind them.

I always wonder how drivers feel about having the fans right there looking at them, getting in their way, etc. It’s not like I can walk into the Chicago Bears locker room and stare at Brian Urlacher before a game, although if the NFL decides to start doing that sign me up! Just kidding. Sort of. Ok I’m not kidding.

Anyway, back to yesterday. I stood in the victory lane above pit road and realized that this was exactly where I wanted to be at that exact moment. It was so awesome to just be there, taking pictures and watching the cars drive by. There weren’t a lot of people on hand, although more started to come in as I was leaving, but all in all I probably saw less than 15 people all told — lots of grandparents, fathers and sons.

Travis Kvapil, David Ragan, J.J. Yeley, Marcos Ambrose, Sam Hornish Jr. and David Gilliland were all there to test cars in anticipation of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. J.J., David Ragan, Marcos and Travis tested in GT America stock cars provided by Pioneer Motorsports from Lake Oroville, California (outside Sacramento). David Gilliland drove a NASCAR Camping World Series West car. I seriously couldn’t tell who was who ’cause the paint schemes were not their own, except for Sam’s.

Of the drivers that were present I only saw J.J., David Gilliland and Sam outside of their cars. I got a photo of Sam on his cell phone. It was so odd trying to take a photo them. I felt like a paparazzo. You feel like you should be able to say something but you can’t.

I took some very, very bad video of a couple cars on the track. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of video taping live action events, so forgive me.

Here’s a quote from David Gilliland talking about the importance of Infineon:

“People used to think, ‘This is Sonoma, a road race. I’m not good at road races.’ But now, with the points so close, you can’t give up on one race,” said Gilliland. “You can’t have a bad race anymore and expect to be up front. It’s too competitive now, so people are starting to take it more seriously.”

Sam Hornish Jr. chatting on his cell phone during the testing session at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

This is the back of J.J. Yeley discussing stuff with his crew at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

And now the back of David Gilliland talking one of his crew members at Infineon Raceway. (Photo Credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

More photos of the cars in my Flickr account!