Kahne confident
In the years B.C. – Before the Chase – few would have paid much attention to Kasey Kahne, who was in 11th place entering today’s race at California Speedway in Fontana, Calif.
Twenty-five races into a 36-race season and 540 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson, Kahne would have been reduced to this: trying to salvage a mostly lost season with another win or two and building momentum for 2007.
Instead, the third-year NASCAR Nextel Cup star is still battling for one of the 10 spots in the field for the 10-race Chase for the championship. And the seven drivers ahead of him are wary of the No. 9 Evernham Motorsports Dodge team. Two races remain before the playoffs.
“I’m looking (ahead) as far as fourth or fifth place as cars we can catch in these final two races, depending on what they do and depending on what we do,” Kahne said.
Going into the Sony HD 500, which will start in late afternoon and finish under the lights, Kahne is 90 points behind 10th-place Mark Martin.
If it was only that one spot that was up for grabs, there wouldn’t be as much buzz. But Kahne also finds himself within 138 points of fourth-place Kyle Busch. In between is the all-star cast of Jeff Gordon, rookie Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin.
Kahne doesn’t expect to make up the entire deficit this weekend, although he’d certainly like to get a good start on it before the real pressure cooker next Saturday night at Richmond.
First, he’d like to at least get close to 10th place.
“It would be nice if we could cut it in half, or maybe even more than that,” Kahne said of the 90-point deficit. “That would help a lot going into Richmond.
“We’ll just try to do our best and finish in the top five and lead laps. If we don’t do that, we’re going to have a hard time at Richmond.”
If history is any indicator, Kahne has a good chance of moving up.
In his five previous Cup starts on California’s 2-mile oval, Kahne has three top 10s, including a runner-up finish in September 2004, sixth last September and fourth in the spring race this year.
“We’ve finished well the past two weeks and have lost points,” Kahne said. “Hopefully, we’ll have two good races and see where it puts us.”
Kahne wins shootout
Kasey Kahne outdueled Paul Menard in an exciting NASCAR Busch Series shootout Saturday night that ended with Kahne in California Speedway’s Victory Lane and Menard coasting across the finish line out of fuel.
Kahne and Menard both topped off their gas tanks during the last caution period of the Ameriquest 300, with 52 of the 150 laps to go on the two-mile oval.
That dropped both of them out of the top 20, but the drivers ahead of them all had to pit for gas before the end and that left Nextel Cup star Kahne and Busch Series regular Menard to fight it out at the end.
The top two swapped the lead several times in the final 10 laps, with Kahne moving on top for the final time on lap 148. It looked like Menard was ready to make another run at the leader on the final lap when he suddenly slowed on the backstretch, out of fuel.
“It was a great battle,” said Kahne, who wound up with enough gas left to do some post-victory burnouts for the fans. “We were both saving fuel and both trying to make it to the end, save fuel and race each other. But the bottom line is to make it to the finish.”
Series leader Kevin Harvick stretched his last tank of gas and wound up second despite an ill-handling car that caused him trouble throughout the race, Mark Martin, who dominated much of the race before a late gas stop knocked him out of the lead, came back to finish third, just ahead of Menard.