Lynchburg native living dream in Sprint Cup

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kevin Conway looked at his PR rep, then to his crew chief, Peter Sospenzo, and barked out a loud rolling laugh that shook his NASCAR Sprint Cup hauler.

He was having a conversation when something he said in all seriousness took on a different, more comedic, meaning. Conway, a Lynchburg native who plans to run a full Cup schedule this year with Front Row Motorsports with Yates Racing, has found himself doing that a lot more lately.

It’s much easier to speak in double entendres when your race team is sponsored by a “male enhancement” supplement. It’s also much easier to laugh when you’re meeting your goals as a Sprint Cup rookie.

All jokes aside – and there were a lot of them during Conway’s 20-minute interview with The News & Advance after practice Friday at Martinsville Speedway – the arrangement between sponsor ExtenZe and FRM has been mutually beneficial.

Call it brand enhancement meets career enhancement.

ExtenZe is hoping its affiliation with NASCAR helps introduce its product to a broader subset of consumers. In return, the supplement company is allowing Conway, a racing vagabond of sorts, to live his dream of competing in stock car’s top circuit.

And though Conway’s team is running on a shoestring budget, the goal is to turn moderate success this year into something bigger in the future.

“First and foremost, our goal is to win the Raybestos Rookie of the Year title, and secondly it’s to stay in the top 35 in points,” said Conway, the only Cup rookie to run in at least four races this season. “So far, we’ve been able to accomplish those goals.

“That’s the biggest thing is just managing expectations and being realistic of the size of organization we are and the resources we have to work with compared to everyone else. We’re running on a fraction of the resources that 99 percent of the drivers have.”

How small is FRM’s race budget? It’s not even close to the $40 million bankrolls of more established multi-car race outfits.

“The difference would be going to dinner and ordering a Bud Light or going to dinner and ordering a bottle of Dom Perignon. … A draft Bud Light,” Conway said with a laugh.

Many high-budget teams scrap cars after a couple of races. Conway’s team has six cars to use for the entire season. And these aren’t new machines. They’re all from 2007, the year the Car of Tomorrow was introduced.

So his modest aspirations of winning top rookie honors and staying in the top 35 of the owners’ point standings, a distinction that would earn him entry into every race regardless of qualifying position, fall under one bigger goal: Take care of his race cars.

His team doesn’t have a great amount of resources, in terms of equipment or manpower, to continually put back together wrecked machines.

“We’ve talked every day about doing the right thing, the smart thing, not going out there and driving over his head,” Sospenzo said. “(We want him to) just methodically take it one step at a time, keep the car together, get the experience, because he’s not going to learn anything if he wrecks the car.”

Conway, 30, has done what his team has asked of him so far. He finished all four of his starts this season and had a career-best 28th-place showing last week at Bristol Motor Speedway, despite dropping a cylinder early in the race.

Martinsville Speedway, site of today’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500, poses a different challenge for Conway.

The track is tight like Bristol, but it’s not as fast. And there is more braking because of the longer straightaways on Martinsville’s paperclip-sized layout.

Conway took his first laps around his hometown track Friday and spent time getting used to its unique qualities.

“It’s a very unassuming race track,” Conway said. “It’s really challenging as a driver, because you have to hit your marks perfectly. The field is so tight here. You’re looking at only five or six tenths (of a second) separating the entire field.

“I had never been in a Cup car on a short track before Bristol last weekend. Now I’m coming to a race track I’ve never turned a lap on, and I have an hour and a half to figure it out before qualifying against the best of the world.”

Conway spent his youth in the Lynchburg area racing go-karts and motorcycles on local tracks like Lizard Ridge Kart Track in Bedford.

He raced go-karts, motorcycles and stock cars in many different divisions before testing his mettle in the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2003. But even as he competed against the best drivers in NASCAR’s second-biggest division, he struggled to stay afloat.

“The biggest difference between motorsports and stick and ball sports is talent alone will only take you so far before you have to have sponsorship to help you get to the next level,” said Conway, who graduated from UNC Charlotte with a marketing degree. “Sponsorship kind of helps create opportunities, but you still have to have the talent to capitalize on those opportunities.”

Through a lot of his own legwork, Conway arranged a test sponsorship deal with ExtenZe last year for the Nationwide Series.

They did five test races together, and then ExtenZe signed on for the remaining seven events.

ExtenZe committed to sponsor Conway – who can be seen on some late night commercials endorsing the company’s product – for the entire 2010 season, and the initial plan was to run full time in the Nationwide Series.

“Heading into 2010, we were really planning on just running full time in the Nationwide Series and making a legitimate run at being a top 10 contender and trying to go win some races, but the opportunity with Ford Racing and Front Row Motorsports with Yates Racing came up to compete for the Raybestos Rookie of the Year title in the Sprint Cup Series, and it was something ExtenZe really wanted to do,” Conway said.

So the team set some simple goals, and little by little, things are working out.

FRM also fields cars for David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil. All three have finished every race in which they’ve started.

“We definitely are pleased with where we are,” Front Row Motorsports general manager Jerry Freeze said. “We think we can do better, that’s for sure. We think we’ll get better, without a doubt. To get through these first five races and have all three cars in the top 35, it’s definitely mission accomplished from that perspective.”