Infineon 200
Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Race 5 of 25
Qualifying: May 20th, 5:45 pm EST
Start: May 21st, 8:30 pm EST

In the Top-10
Kvapil sits 10th place in NCTS driver’s points after finishing 2nd at Daytona, 4th at Atlanta, 13th at Martinsville and 32nd at Mansfield.

Alex Meshkin: 23-Year-Old Owner Starts Season Off With A Bang! Bang Racing’s owner, the youngest in NASCAR to date, has turned a few heads in the industry with impressive out-of-the box performances by drivers Travis Kvapil, Mike Skinner and Toyota. The team has accumulated four top-five’s and four top-10’s in only four starts. The two drivers also sit comfortably inside the top-10 in points.

Noteables: The Season So Far, Cheddar on Track at LMS
Travis has accumulated two top-fives and two top-10’s this season in only four races. He currently sits in 10th place in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver’s points’ race, only 99 points out of the lead.

Kvapil’s run of 35 consecutive races without a DNF ended at Mansfield last weekend after an accident stopped the champion short. It was only the second DNF for the most consistent driver in NASCAR.

Kvapil and the No. 24 Line-X team will be taking Cheddar to Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “I figured there’s no better name than Cheddar for the 06 chassis since it will be our good old standby and main truck in the stable this season,” he said. “I was laughing with the team yesterday trying to think of the slogan that was used in old cheese commercials and finally remembered what it was: Everything’s better with Cheddar….especially a trophy in Victory Lane.” A longtime aficionado, teammate Mike Skinner will be naming his chasses after wines this season.

How are you doing after your DNF at Mansfield?
Oddly enough, I wasn’t angry like at Martinsville because all weekend long the truck was running good. We had good performance on the track and were able to pass trucks, and the incident that ultimately caused us to drop out of the race was just a racing deal. It’s just a part of short track racing. After our run in, the radiator hose just kinked and cooked the engine. I was disappointed that I didn’t finish the race since it was my first DNF in about two years since Nashville of 2002. I finally broke the 35 consecutive lead lap streak I had going. But the team is pumped about Charlotte. I’m especially excited because it’s a track that I finished fourth at my first time there. It’s going to be a good track for our team based on my performance at Atlanta and our previous tests at Texas and Chicago. Each of those tracks has a lot of the same characteristics as Charlotte, so we’re ready to redeem ourselves this weekend.

Describe the challenges you’ll face battling the track at Charlotte.
Charlotte’s a very fast, challenging race track. The front stretch has got a dog leg in it, basically two turns in the front straightaway. When you get into Turns 1 and 2 which have a lot of banking and are a little bit tighter corners than 3 and 4, if you’re just right with the truck, you can run around there wide open so you don’t have to lift off the gas. It’s pretty exhilarating. But about midway down the backstretch it gets really rough and bumpy from the tunnel under the back straightaway. You see a lot of guys bobbing down the backstretch. There are also some small patches that the track’s put in to try and repair some of the asphalt, so there are a couple of unique spots that keep you on your toes. When you get into Turn 3, if you make a really high entrance in and make a late turn getting down into the corner, you can really keep up your speed getting into the turn. If you come into it too low, then you’re not able to keep your truck turning from the center of the corner off. So you want to come in real high, get out of the gas a little bit and be back in the gas wide open before you get to the center of the corner and drive off into Turn 4 which is back across the start-finish line.

What do you think the team’s strong suit will be at this track?
It seems like we’ve got good notes to look at from our Atlanta race and from the Texas and Chicago tests. I feel very confident that we’ve got a great setup going into the race. I don’t think we’ll have to change anything from when we unload. With Eric’s experience and win there and with my fourth place finish there last year despite not having seen the track before, we’ve got an unbeatable combination. My teammate has a lot of laps there under his belt in a Cup car, so if we do run into any problems we can look to him to give us some help.

What did you gain from your test at Chicago last week?
We learned more about what sort of setups we need to run, what our Tundra liked on the big, fast mile-and-a-half and two-mile race tracks that have banking. We also learned what sort of springs to run and basically what the truck liked and didn’t like. It just gave us some really good direction, and it gave us a really good baseline setup for a lot of the race tracks we will visit in the summer…those mile-and-a-half speedways that are pretty similar. It gave us a good setup to unload with at Charlotte, and obviously it’ll give us more notes in our notebook to look back on if we run into a problem or if we need help in an area.

What is the biggest issue that you as a driver face at Charlotte?
My biggest issue is my inexperience since I only have one race under my belt there. And Charlotte seems like a place where a driver with some experience at that race track will surely help them out. I do feel comfortable and confident going into this weekend. I don’t feel like I’ll have any problems or that my one race there will really hurt me at all. Everything and everyone I have behind me at Bang Racing will help me overcome my lack of experience there.

How about the team?
The biggest challenge for the team is that Charlotte’s the type of race track that if the weather changes much, it can really change the handling and characteristics of the race track. If it gets hot out, the track gets really slick and slows down. If it cools off or gets cloudy, the handling of the race car will change quite a bit. It just gains a lot of grip and doesn’t necessarily make your car tighter or looser but it just increases grip a lot and is something that your team has to be aware of if you need to make any adjustments to your truck.

Crew Chief, Eric Phillips, on Charlotte:
I’m looking forward to heading back to Charlotte this weekend. Historically, my track record there is successful having helped lead Greg Biffle to a win in the Busch series last fall. Charlotte holds many similarities to Atlanta, and our Line-X team proved that we could work together to bring home a strong finish at that track earlier this season. I’m also confident that our test sessions at Texas and Chicago will prove to be beneficial in helping the team have the right setup right off the hauler. And the communication between me and Travis and the team in general just keeps getting better week after week. So I definitely see nothing but positives going into the event this weekend. We’re more than ready to bring home the first victory for Bang Racing and Toyota.

Kvapil Appearances at LMS
Kvapil and teammate Mike Skinner will stop in for a short Q & A Session at the Toyota Tent on Friday, May 21, from 5-5:15 p.m.

No. 24 Line-X Tundra Crew Members
Crew Chief: Eric Phillips
Truck Chief/Jackman: Rodney McGehee
Front Tire Changer: Mark Presnell (Taylorsville, NC)
Rear Tire Changer: Dwayne Bigger
Front Tire Carrier: Jeremy Williamson
Rear Tire Carrier: Herman Reiss
Gasman/Hauler Driver: David “Cowboy” Burrow (Trinity, NC)
Catchcan: Hunter Sullivan
2nd Can/Runner: Buddy Hall
Spotter: Doug Sigmon (Conover, NC)

North Carolina Natives
The No. 24 Line-X Tundra team has several North Carolina natives on board for 2004. Front tire changer Mark Presnell is from Taylorsville and enjoys paintball in his spare time. Gasman and hauler driver David “Cowboy” Burrow is originally from Trinity and was formerly a NASCAR official in Winston Cup. His fondest racing memory was being able to decide the winner of the Atlanta race in 2000 between Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt. Spotter Doug Sigmon enjoys GASCRL online racing and is currently 3rd in points in the MARS Racing League. The Bang Racing shop is also located in Mooresville, NC, the heart of the NASCAR racing industry.