Kahne trying to stay upbeat in down year
Up and down like a roller coaster.
It best describes the first 3 1/2 years of Kasey Kahne’s Nextel Cup career. There was a terrific 2004 Rookie of the Year season, followed by 2005, where a first career victory couldn’t hide the disappointment of finishing 23rd in points.
A year ago, Kasey Kahne experienced a great upswing, winning a league-best six races and finishing eighth in the final point standings. What has followed has been a drop he couldn’t have imagined.
Heading into Saturday’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, he’s already eliminated from Chase contention, more than 600 points behind the 12th-place cut-off spot and over 1,400 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.
“We’re working hard to get back to where we were,” said Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 9 Dodge. “Hopefully sooner than later we’ll start figuring things out. You get off a little bit and it’s hard to get it back. The Car of Tomorrow has gotten much better for us. I’m thinking we’ll be better this weekend, hopefully have a shot at a top 15 at the end of the night.
It might seem odd for a driver who led the series in wins a year ago to set a goal of a top-15 finish. With the way Kasey Kahne’s 2007 has gone with seven finishes out of the top 30, a top 15 effort doesn’t sound so bad.
“We want to win races, but you don’t come from finishing 20th or 25th to suddenly winning again,” said Kasey Kahne. “It seems like you have to make your way up there, figure things out as quickly as you can. But it takes time. I’m just hoping to get consistent again, get back in the top 10, top 15. Once you start doing that, then you’ll have opportunities to win.”
Car owner Ray Evernham recently admitted many of his teams’ Dodges were constructed wrong for 2007 due to a geometrical mistake in the car-building process. It’s been an enormous obstacle for the whole organization to overcome. A bigger challenge for the 27-year-old driver has been keeping a positive attitude.
“I was feeling down a little bit a few weeks back,” said Kasey Kahne. “Now I’m where I need to be, just trying to keep the guys motivated, working on things that we need to work on. If we keep doing that, it will get better for sure.”
Being lighter with the throttle is another change in philosophy for Kasey Kahne, a hard charger throughout his career. His pedal-to-the metal style has previously caused problems with 22 DNF’s more than triple the seven career wins he posted.
“You have to change your driving style,” said Kasey Kahne, who has 12 career poles. “When things aren’t as good, if you don’t change your driving style, you just crash. You have to change your driving style, change the way you look at things when it’s like this.”
Now that the problems with the cars have been diagnosed, the team has reverted back to its 2006 notes at the larger tracks like Michigan. Those notes will do little good this weekend at Bristol, where Dodge teams will run the Car of Tomorrow Avenger.
While it’s been an adjustment for Kasey Kahne to get the feel of this bulkier race car, a background of racing everything from dirt cars to Indy-style cars has helped.
“You change your driving style, but you drive what you got,” said the Enumclaw, Wash. native. “If the car’s handling in a certain way, then you drive it that way. You learn that as you progress in racing, as you go from track to track, learn how to get used to tracks and cars quickly. You just drive your car to what it’s capable of, what you can do. If you cross that line, then you usually hit the wall.”
Back in the spring, Kasey Kahne qualified the COT Avenger second at the Food City 500 to match a career-best Bristol start. While he finished 19th, he was pleased with the overall effort. Bristol’s high banks have often been a struggle for the young driver. He has two outside poles, but only has one top-10 finish in seven BMS races. He believes there’s a chance to improve that record Saturday night.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Kasey Kahne. “We ran good at Bristol with the Car of Tomorrow and our Car of Tomorrow program has been getting better for about the last month or so. I’m definitely looking forward to Bristol, hoping to change some things around.”
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