A NEW SPECIALIST AT YATES

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902050357



Sports
Keizer native gets shot on NASCAR crew
By Bill Poehler • Statesman Journal

February 5, 2009
Long-time area racing mechanic and Keizer native Dan "Stick" Kihlstadius has landed a crew position with the No. 28 NASCAR Sprint Cup team and driver Travis Kvapil.


"That's what it's all about," Kihlstadius said.

Kihlstadius, a 1994 graduate of McNary, had a short time after finding out he had the position before he had to move from his Keizer home with his girlfriend, Krista, to his new home in Concord, N.C.

This week Kihlstadius is in Daytona for Sunday's qualifying for the Daytona 500.

Kvapil's former crew has been moved to Bobby Labonte's No. 96 car, whose Hall of Fame team will be operated by Yates Racing.

That brought a number of openings for crew members for Kvapil's crew.

Sprint Cup driver Greg Biffle, whom Kihlstadius helped at the Jon Miller Memorial race at Sunset Speedway in Banks the past two summers, called to see if he was interested in a position.

Kihlstadius called Roush Fenway Racing general manager Robby Reiser, and Reiser offered Kihlstadius a tire specialist position.

"The main thing is I got a pretty good help from the Biffle family," Kihlstadius said.

Though Kihlstadius was hired by Roush Fenway Racing's Reiser, he will work with Yates Racing, which has a co-operative agreement with Roush Fenway.

According to scenedaily.com, Kvapil's crew chief will be Ford Racing's NASCAR field manager Ben Leslie.

Kvapil's No. 28 car has only sponsorship for the Feb. 15 Daytona 500 from restaurant Golden Corral but no sponsorship for the rest of the season.

The team also will have no points from 2008 to fall back on to get into the first five races of the season — they were moved to teammate Paul Menard's sponsored car.

Kvapil will have to qualify for the first five races of the Sprint Cup season strictly by his qualifying efforts.

"There's a reason why they took all the points from Travis and they gave them to Bobby and Paul," Kihlstadius said. "He's obviously going to have enough good things and good stuff to make the races.

"Not having a sponsor is going to hurt us, but they're not worried right now."

Kihlstadius, who had been an engineering tech at Fujimi Corp., as a day job, has worked with a number of race car drivers on dirt late models for more than a decade.

Among the drivers he has worked with are Salem driver Jeremy Shank, Greg Walters, Eric Sayre, Jeff Biffle, Jimmy Schram, Jerry Schram, Joey Tanner and Jody Tanner.

Kihlstadius was a crew member on Shank's 2004 Pacific Coast Xtreme DirtCar Series championship as well as on Walters' Willamette Speedway Super Sport championships in 2000 and 2001.

"Everybody wants to be a race car driver," Kihlstadius said. "I wanted to be a mechanic. I've always wanted to help kind of piece things together and make people fast."

shows

Andrew, do you know anything about this new Tire Specialist?

Yatesracing wrote:

Andrew, do you know anything about this new Tire Specialist?

Can't say as though I've ever heard of him.

Thanks for the article, though.