Floodgates have opened for Carson Kvapil after recent success

There was a time when Carson Kvapil didn't even know if he'd be running the entirety of the 2026 NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series schedule. 

Fast forward to August, and not only is Kvapil second in the series standings, but he's also won the first two races of his career back-to-back at Indianapolis and Iowa. 

The floodgates have been thrown open with force by the 23-year-old from Mooresville, North Carolina, who won Saturday's race at Iowa after a rash of late cautions and restarts. 

"It's really cool," Kvapil said. "It was a long time coming to get my first win last [race] at Indy, and to come to the next race and have a race like that and get a back-to-back victory is a really big deal to me."

Kvapil is the ninth driver in series history to have their first two series wins come in consecutive races. 

Carson Kvapil talks through closing laps

It initially looked like Ross Chastain was going to hold off Kvapil in the closing laps, despite Kvapil closing slightly on the Cup Series star. But a caution with four laps to go sent the race into overtime, which gave Kvapil the opportunity he needed to strike. 

"I don't think we were going to get to him by any means with five or six to go," Kvapil said. "I honestly was worried about our fire-off [speed]. The 7 was third, he had better tires. Going into that [second-to-last] restart, I kind of knew the 9 had been struggling all day on his launches. I knew we at least had better launches."

Kvapil took the lead from Chastain on the restart, but the focus was on the carnage that unfolded behind him. Justin Allgaier, Ryan Sieg and Brent Crews all crashed going into turn 1, which forced the race into double overtime. 

"We were able to get a really good launch in the box," Kvapil said. "I think we all but had 'em cleared going into [turn] 1. From there, it's just about running perfect corners and not overstepping."

The final four corners of Kvapil's afternoon were good enough for him to hold off his JR Motorsports teammate in Rajah Caruth and take the checkered flag. 

Going into the Aug. 28 regular season finale at Daytona, there isn't a hotter driver in the series than Kvapil, who will be aiming to hold onto the No. 2 seed in the Chase and trying to win a third straight race at the Florida superspeedway. 

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.