Pit Pass: Steve Ballard & Curt Cavin
Although the start of NASCAR's Chase for the Nextel Cup still is five months away, history suggests several familiar names already are too far behind to have much chance of getting in.
Former series champions Bobby Labonte (23rd in points) and Dale Jarrett (38th) are joined deep in the pack by veterans Ricky Rudd, Sterling Marlin, Casey Mears, Ward Burton and Jeremy Mayfield. Like Burton and Mayfield, rookie A.J. Allmendinger qualified for only two of the season's first seven races.
To a certain extent, those drivers' struggles were expected. But that cannot be said of Kasey Kahne, who after winning a series-leading six races a year ago was touted as a championship challenger in his fourth season at Evernham Motorsports.
Instead, Kasey Kahne, 27, enters Saturday night's Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway in 33rd place, 580 points out of the lead.
This is NASCAR's fourth try with its playoff format, and to date no one making the final cut ever has been as far back as Kasey Kahne this deep in the season.
In fact, the farthest back a top-10 driver has been after seven races is 17th, which occurred in 2005 with Matt Kenseth (434 points behind the leader). Jeff Burton was 16th last year (322 back) and Mark Martin also was 16th in 2004 (243 back).
The Chase has been expanded from 10 to 12 positions, but Kasey Kahne is 223 points behind No. 12 David Stremme.
Unlike Jimmie Johnson a year ago, when he lost crew chief Chad Knaus for the first four races yet won the championship, Kasey Kahne's team has not been able to overcome having crew chief Kenny Francis suspended for four races for a rules infraction in Daytona 500 qualifying.
"We've had a lot of things go wrong and haven't had the results," Kasey Kahne said. "Hopefully, this will be the week we get things turned around."
All seven Toyota drivers are outside the top 35 in the standings. Of course, no one is in as bad of shape as Michael Waltrip, who headed to Phoenix with a negative number of points (27) after being slapped with a major penalty for cheating at Daytona. Waltrip hasn't qualified for a race since, leaving him 54th in the standings, a whopping 1,163 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.
Servia continues sub role
Fresh off of a runner-up finish last week in the Grand Prix of Long Beach (Calif.), Spaniard Oriol Servia again will fill in for injured Paul Tracy in Sunday's Champ Car World Series race at Reliant Park in Houston.
Tracy is expected to be out for three months after suffering a compression fracture in his lower back when he crashed in practice at Long Beach.
"Obviously, I hope Paul gets back soon and I hope I find another ride," Servia said. "You always feel bad when a driver gets hurt, and especially him. He's a good friend."
After Sunday's race, Champ Car's third in three weeks, the series is idle until June 10 at Portland, Ore.
Duno on target for debut
Milka Duno's team manager said she's on pace to make her IndyCar Series debut next weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Duno will test Monday at Kentucky Speedway and Wednesday at Kansas. She ran 140 incident-free laps at Kansas on April 12. Her three other planned days were rained out.
Peter Baron, the team manager, won't reveal her lap speeds at Kansas, but if anything, he said they were too high.
"For our goal, they were almost too fast," he said. "We'll intentionally pack on loads of (aerodynamic downforce) so she can move forward (at the start of the Kansas race) without worrying about people coming from behind."
She will be the third woman in the IndyCar Series, joining Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick.
Etc.
NASCAR has received permission from Virginia Tech to display the school's logo on race cars for the next three weeks in a tribute to the victims of this week's campus shootings. . . . Longtime open-wheel and NASCAR team owner Cal Wells is liquidating his PPI Motorsports operation. Equipment was auctioned this week. . . . The ARCA series visits Salem (Ind.) Speedway for the 80th time since 1955 on Sunday. Nextel Cup driver Ken Schrader plans to fly in for the race after competing Saturday night in Phoenix.
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