Oh, grow up
Immaturity has been a running theme this year in Nextel Cup. Between the Busch brothers, Tony Stewart, and even Juan Pablo Montoya, it's been a year of watching good drivers stop short when it comes to the arena of common sense.
Apparently, this weekend was Kasey Kahne's turn to step up.
It's no secret the driver of the No. 9 Dodge for Evernham Motorsports is going through a nightmarish season. After a 2006 in which he posted six wins and 12 top-five finishes, the best Kasey Kahne's been able to muster in '07 are two top 10 runs at Daytona International Speedway. In between, he's endured four DNFs, eight finishes of 31st or worse, and countless media criticism over how his team went from fast to flop in little more than a blink of an eye.
Certainly, the collapse should not all be placed on Kasey Kahne's shoulders. The suspension of crew chief Kenny Francis at Daytona after a cheating scandal set the season off on the wrong foot, and the two have struggled to achieve the right chemistry since he returned in March. Fifty-year-old team owner Ray Evernham's public relationship with his own ARCA driver half his age, Erin Crocker, along with the pending sale of the team to investor George Gillett has made the team a source of constant scrutiny week in, week out.
But the one thing Kasey Kahne can control throughout a difficult season is his attitude -- and that's been a struggle. As the poor-handling cars and rough finishes have become a weekly occurrence, so, too, has Kasey Kahne's tendency to take his frustration out on others -- and the examples of his loss of composure are slowly building.
The latest of these occurred at Indy -- a track where Kasey Kahne was initially hopeful. Qualifying fifth with an '06 Charger and a setup that had led to success last season, he expected the team's desperate move of looking to the past to build his future could pay off.
Instead, an ill-handling car found itself in the wall before 40 laps were even complete, as Tony Raines got caught up in a crash that appeared to be the result of a young driver all but giving up on his day.
"I can tell you what Kasey said to me," explained Raines after both cars wound up in the garage. "I went by him so fast on the outside that it got him loose and made him mad. So he said, 'I figured if I was going, I'd take you with me.' That's what he said."
"I was just getting passed and just spun around," Kasey Kahne added after calming down. "Before I even got to the corner, the back was already gone. I was really tight the whole time and that is why we were dropping back, so I was surprised when [the car[ just took off like that.
"We were just kind of going backwards. We didn't have a very good car. I'm really surprised. As we were going back, he was coming by me on the outside, and we both ended up wrecking, so that is the way it goes, I guess."
These are hardly words that inspire confidence within an organization desperate for a strong voice to lead it out of the abyss. But that's par for the course for Kasey Kahne; as his season has gone downhill, he appears to rotate back and forth from these white flag submissions of defeat to white-hot criticisms of other drivers.
Take Richmond, when after a wreck with David Stremme, Kasey Kahne's outward disgust made waves he never really apologized for: "My car was better, but everywhere I went, Stremme went," Kasey Kahne said of a car that never contended during the course of the night. "I don't know. He's pretty fat and out of shape. That's probably half the reason [the two made contact]."
Despite the sour taste to this season, Kasey Kahne continues to be a driver whose stock is high. Last Friday at the Brickyard, Kasey Kahne emerged from his trailer and two dozen fans, most of them women, immediately crowded around asking for autographs, while just 50 feet away drivers walked around without being bothered. With Budweiser and Allstate just two of several sponsors clamoring to share space on his car with Dodge, it's clear the man continues to have a bright future laid out for him.
But all the money in the world can't fix his emotional state of mind. He needs to take a deep breath, focus, and turn his attention to finding the light at the end of the tunnel. As Evernham's No. 1 driver now and in the future, he should be setting a positive example; instead, he appears to be throwing his hands in the air.
"[Sunday] it wouldn't turn," Kasey Kahne said in exasperation about his car's handling after Indy. "[Saturday] it turned really, really good and [Sunday], it wouldn't turn at all. It wouldn't sit down and get into the corner like you need to, and I don't know why that is. I can't figure it out."
"When you when six races last year and you can't get out of your own way this year, I can understand the struggles," Raines said. "I just don't like being the guy he takes it out on."
Neither does anyone else. If only Kasey Kahne would take that energy and apply it to leading his team, maybe things would get better. But he's not, and once again, the immaturity permeating NASCAR continues to win out.
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