Chad Chaffin will head to Kansas City next weekend with a whole new racing outlook at Key Motorsports, and the Murfreesboro, Tennessee driver likes what he sees so far.

"Based on everything that has happened with this race team over the last few weeks, I like what has been done so far and we should have our best opportunity for a really good run since the opener in Daytona," Chaffin said after visiting the race shop earlier this week.

Team owner Curtis W. Key, Sr. has made some significant changes in his equipment and personnel since the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series last competed at Martinsville late last month; things that teams not running to their fullest potential traditionally do to get better.

Lance Hooper returns to the Key Motorsports team as its new crew chief, replacing long-time NCTS head wrench Gary Showalter, and nearly every one of the team's 2008 Chevrolet Silverado race trucks have been cut up and altered after two weeks of non-stop work engineered by Hooper, who has brought some badly needed technology help to the team that shows a 22nd place finish at Martinsville as its best finish of the '08 season.

"We have had problems with our bodies, that's a given," said Chaffin, "and I really like what changes I have seen. We'll know just how good those changes are when I get out on the race track next weekend at Kansas for that first practice session, but my preliminary assessment is that we've done some things that are going to help, and that's the most important thing," Chaffin added.

The 40-year-old Hooper, a 5-time driving champion in three different NASCAR racing Series secured from 1990 to 1996 beginning in his native California, is all work and is bringing a more aggressive management style to Key Motorsports.

"Curtis already had some good people in the race shop, and other than a few changes that need to be made here and there, the team will pretty much stay in tact," Hooper explained. "He (Key) has poured a lot of money in building the organization's infrastructure. It's twice what I had to work with when I last worked here in 2005 and 2006, but I learned a lot during the two years I was away and that is what this team needed to take that next step," Hooper added.

What Hooper learned during his recent stint with ThorSports Motorsports was some of the latest technology made available to the Chevrolet teams by General Motors, and the very first thing Lance did was to bring that technology to Key Motorsports. "They've changed the geometry of the race trucks and are hanging new bodies, and this all came through the efforts of Lance, Chevrolet engineering and a hard-working bunch of guys that Curtis has assembled in the shop," Chaffin stated.

Chaffin will face some additional pressure in next Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at the Kansas Speedway when Wrapitupvehiclewraps.com comes on board the #40 Chevrolet as the team's primary sponsor for the first of two events this season.

Wrapitupvehiclewraps.com is a division of JMI Signs, a Shawnee, Kansas-based company that specializes in colorful, vibrant and often zany vinyl vehicle wraps and large format printing. The partnership with Key Motorsports is the company's first in NASCAR, all in an effort to help the company show off its product to the masses and to expand its new franchising operation. The #40 Wrapitupvehiclewraps.com Chevrolet will feature a wild graphics scheme all done in the same vehicle wrap process that JMI Signs promotes.

"Our race truck is certainly going to standout," Chaffin said when commenting about the new sponsor, but all he wants to do is run competitively and in the front of the pack instead of where the #40 has been running during the season's first four races.

"We hadn't run good at all this year except for Daytona until I crashed and during the second half of the race in Atlanta. The problems I was having had little to do with motor or something that could be fixed by a simple wedge or track bar adjustment. Curtis has addressed that by bringing in Lance and allowing him to take full advantage of the resources that have been available to us but not tapped before. I'm excited about what this will hopefully mean for this race team," Chaffin ended.

Chaffin has had some success at one of NASCAR's typical, cookie-cutter, 1.5-mile tri-oval Kansas track, sitting on the pole for a NCTS race in 2003. He led a bunch of laps in that race and finished 14th and then had 9th and 17th placethat have been available to us but not tapped before. I'ns finishes the next two seasons driving for Bobby Hamilton Racing.

"Give me something to drive at Kansas and I can get the job done," Chaffin boasted. Hooper, Key and Company hope to do just that as the #40 seeks to finally come away with a good finish and a significant step up in the point's standing.