In front of a sold out Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, Caden Kvapil joined his father and older brother by earning a famed Music City guitar trophy and the validation that comes with it.
As their father tells it, Caden is every bit as good as Carson, a two-time CARS Tour champion turned full-time O’Reilly Series contender and just needed to wait his chance to prove it.
Ever since Caden took over the JR Motorsports No. 88, with Travis serving as crew chief, they’ve won the 2025 series finale at North Wilkesboro, the South Carolina 400 and two of the first three races in 2026.
Sure, it’s a good car and Travis serving as crew chief is no tremendous departure from JR Motorsports program manager Bryan Shaffer but the point is that Caden’s potential is right there with his older brother and is validating it just like Carson did before him.
“What Caden has done over the last year is showing ‘hey, I’m pretty effing good too,’ right,” said Travis. “Carson has been there, done that, and won a lot of races for JRM in the Late Model deal.
“We’re so thankful that Dale and Kelley, everyone, has supported this effort and he’s on a tear right now. He’s getting it done and is so much fun to work with everyday at the shop with his feedback and how we work together. For a father and son to do this together, I love it and it couldn’t be any better.”
Travis says he and Carson put together a case to showcase both of their guitars but now Caden has put them in a position to have to rework it after winning the Tootsies Music City Showdown.
“So my dad has the case and my brother’s is sitting on top of the case, and that’s the display,” Caden said. I can’t really put mine under it unless we hang it or something. I don’t know.
“We might need to get a new case or line them up three in a row or something.”
It’s a problem that didn’t look likely to matter for much of the race on Saturday as Parker Eatmon drove away repeatedly from pole sitter Dylan Fetcho, Kvapil, Conner Jones and Landen Lewis for much of the race.
Specifically, Eatmon led all but 10 laps of the race, before a fascinating sequence upended the dynamic. Jones had passed Kvapil for the lead but the caution reversed it. Kvapil took the front row and beat Eatmon from the non-preferred bottom grove.
In clean air, Kvapil was gone and left Eatmon emotional from being denied his first CARS Tour win on this stage, and that’s coming from a former winner of the season ending Thanksgiving Classic.
“This is the CARS Tour, man, hardest Late Model racing in the country,” Eatmon said. “So obviously to come here for the first time and be this good, I just feel like I let everybody down tonight but we got more and we’ll keep grinding and hopefully get us one soon.”
How did Kvapil beat Eatmon out of Turn 2?
“I tried to go as early as possible,” Eatmon said. “I think he knew I was doing that and he timed it perfectly. I didn’t feel like I spun the tires too much. I got a good launch but he drove it off into 1, which he is supposed to do, and I just let it get away from me to be honest.”
Kvapil has read all the online chatter that he gets away with jumped restarts and was adamant that he didn’t want to give that contingent anymore ammunition in Nashville.
“My dad actually warned me before the restart,” Caden said. “So, I made sure to not make it look bad even if he spun his tires. We both spun them pretty good and were even at fourth. I got to fourth a little earlier and was able to get drive off when he was still spinning them and got a nose ahead and clean air is the only way you could pass.”
Jones still doesn’t understand how he didn’t retain the pass for second but the rule is effectively what also put him back on the lead lap at Wake County when he won the most recent race.
It’s another good points day for him and the end result was Kvapil joining Kvapil and Kvapil with a guitar.
“It would have been really awkward if my dad and brother won one and I didn’t,” Caden said. “I saw Carson ride the elevator at Wilkesboro and thought ‘dang, I really want to do that someday’ and it’s cool that we both have one of those too.
“Right now, I’m just soaking up a win in Nashville.”
Tootsies CARS Tour Nashville Challenge
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway
April 11 2026
88 Caden Kvapil
4 Parker Eatmon
89 Dylan Fetcho
44 Conner Jones
29 Landen Lewis
77L Treyten Lapcevich
5 Carson Brown
95 London McKenzie
5B Chase Burrow
16M Chad McCumbee
0 Landon Pembelton
8 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
16 Sam Butler
22 Carson Loftin
41 Mason Diaz
6 Brandon Lopez
57 Landon Huffman
88B Doug Barnes Jr.
98 Donovan Strauss
10 Matt Craig
71 Jake Bollman -1
05 Mason Bailey -1
7 Aiden King -1
14 Jared Fryar -1
2 Brandon Pierce -2
04 Ronnie Bassett Jr. -2
09 Riley Gentry -2
23 Kade Brown -3
77 Landon S. Huffman – OUT
01 Thomas Beane – OUT
15 Jace Hale – OUT
