NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2026

Carson Kvapil

Pit Lane Interview

Q. What a year this was. You maybe overachieved in a really difficult situation, running three different cars. You made the Chase. There was a lot of I think what could have been, things out of your control. You finished third in points. How would you summarize this year?

CARSON KVAPIL: It's tough. Like you said, jumping around from the 9, the 1, the 91, 11 weeks in a row being in a different car. It makes it hard.

I was able to learn honestly quite a bit throughout the year, get a lot of experience. I kind of only had one crew chief this whole time I've done this NASCAR thing. To have three different teams, some crazy weird circumstances going on, I was able to learn from it.

Came into the Chase second, gained points on the 7 in the first half. Never really had any stellar runs of winning races in the Chase until Martinsville. Just had a lot of days where we were leading Bristol and we lose a right rear wheel, lose a truck arm at Charlotte. A lot of points left on the table. That's not even counting the one or two times we finished second over who won the race.

Overall it was a really fun year. When we teamed up with Rodney and the whole No. 1 team, it was game on from there. We finished second in our first two races, won the third and fourth.

It's been a good year. I'm excited to get to next year with these guys. Being full-time, every week together from week one, is going to be really big for us.

Just can't thank everybody enough on the No. 1, Bass Pro Shops, Clarience Technologies, Chevrolet. Everybody from top to bottom. Everybody at JR Motorsports, whether it's in the fab shop, assembly shop, front end shop. Hendrick motor shop too, they brought us really good motors. Seems like every year we get a little better.

Just had a really fun year and a great time with Rodney and this whole crew. Can't wait to kick it back off at Daytona.