Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows a thing or two about pressure. And when you drive for the first ballot NASCAR Hall of Famer, that pressure falls squarely on your shoulders.
After a challenging rookie campaign with JR Motorsports still resulted in a Championship 4 berth, Carson Kvapil set sky-high expectations for the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season. But through 53 career series starts, he remains winless.
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“His runway is not as long as others,” Earnhardt told NASCAR.com of Kvapil. “Tomorrow isn’t promised. Next season isn’t promised. Every race that goes by that he doesn’t snatch a win and do things that he knows he’s capable of doing, we’re getting closer to the end of our runway, and it’s a scary thought. I’ve been accused of worrying about things, and I like to be positive and stay positive about it, but the simple fact is he has to win for this to continue.”
Until Kvapil, 22, basks in Victory Lane glory, he maintains that he is “going to have 1,000 pounds on my shoulders.” With 14 career top-five finishes — including a quartet of runner-ups — he’s been painfully close. That weighs heavily on the North Carolina native.
“I feel like whenever we do give one away like Phoenix, where we had the dominant car, we were the ones to win the race, and we didn’t win. That’s a big cut to the program, and it hurts,” Kvapil said. “I need to win five races. To be transparent, I need to win and be dominant. Obviously, I can’t do that without winning a race.”
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One of the setbacks of Kvapil’s No. 1 Chevrolet in 2025 was losing spots on pit road. That changed for 2026 as Connor Zilisch’s No. 88 Trackhouse Racing team in the NASCAR Cup Series is the No. 1 team’s pit crew this season. Sources revealed that because a Trackhouse pit crew is working with the No. 1 team, that is the primary reason for Kvapil running nine races between JRM’s fifth entry — the No. 9 car — and DGM Racing’s No. 91 ride.
The No. 1 team is Kvapil’s bunch by default. It’s where he feels most comfortable and meshes the most with Cup championship-winning crew chief Rodney Childers. The weeks when he’s not in the No. 1 car consecutively can be straining, bouncing back and forth between meetings with the different groups.
Said Kvapil: “Anytime I drive any car other than the 1, I still go to win the race, but you have to have a little bit different expectations for what’s going to happen.”
Carson Kvapil (L) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (R) talk.
It wasn’t until he clinched a spot in the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway that Kvapil knew he would have another swing at an O’Reilly championship. Before the penultimate race of 2025 at Martinsville Speedway, Kvapil was only slated for 24 races in 2026.
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“In no way was I ready to give up on Carson,” Earnhardt said. “I believed that we were going to figure it out, and eventually we did. His deal coming together this year was really close to not happening. We are very transparent with him about how fortunate he is to be racing and how he needs to know that every single lap of every race is an opportunity for him. He has to know that and understand the urgency.”
Earnhardt believes having Kvapil in different entries can be motivating. His work ethic, which was never in question with the time he spends working on his own hot rods, has grown. When Zilisch won in early April at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kvapil, who finished fifth, brushed it off and was happy for Childers and Co.
“It definitely didn’t bother me by any means that he won,” Kvapil said. “I was super happy for Rodney and that 1 team because those guys have worked their tails off to try to win races, and they had a really good day.
“I’m just waiting for that to be us. There shouldn’t be any reason why we’re not winning races like that. I don’t know when it is, but one of these weekends, there’s no way we can’t win one of these things.”
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Andrew Overstreet, Kvapil’s former crew chief, is also having in-house success, already posting three race wins this season with Justin Allgaier, holding a 105-point lead in the regular-season championship standings.
Earnhardt believes this, too, is a variable the young driver measures.
“Carson is looking across the aisle, so to speak, watching Overstreet have success and win races,” Earnhardt said. “It’s a guy he struggled to produce results with last year, went with Justin and is doing things that Carson wants to do. I think that’s interesting because it can be motivating or debilitating, and I’m still not sure where Carson lands in all of that. I would hope that he sees it as motivating.”
Earnhardt simply wants Kvapil to be the next driver from JR Motorsports’ late model team to succeed. Cup stars William Byron and Josh Berry were standouts in the program, which led to major opportunities.
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“There is a ton of pressure on this guy, and I feel a ton of pressure,” Earnhardt said. “It’s hard to know how to talk to him every week to help him feel great about what he’s doing, be prepared and come to the race track every week and do what he needs to do without the weight of the pressure of trying to win, crushing him. I think that’s the battle right now.”
MORE: O’Reilly Auto Parts Series standings | O’Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule
While Kvapil bounces back and forth between entries during the regular season, all nine Chase races will be with the No. 1 team. Aside from scoring that coveted first triumph, the immediate goal is to soar back up the point standings. After two consecutive finishes outside the top 20 — including a rollover wreck at Kansas Speedway — Kvapil ranks seventh in the standings heading into Saturday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“My goal was to be top three in the points when the playoffs start; I would settle for top five,” Kvapil said. “I think that’s the best spot you could be to try and win a championship.”
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The ultimate end goal for Earnhardt, however, is to position Kvapil for the future. He wants him not to worry about making a living and just focus on racing.
That kid should be dreaming about trying to win championships,” Earnhardt said. “But really, he’s trying to figure out how to survive and stay.”
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