Kasey Kahne wins Food City 500 at Bristol

After taking the lead on a late race restart with 45 laps to go from Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne would pull out ahead of the field to win the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. It marks his first victory of the season, and second top 10 in a row after finishing to Matt Kenseth last week.

“I love racing for Hendrick Motorsports and Rick Hendrick. This team has been great so far this year,” the driver of the No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet said in victory lane. “It’s great to come out here and win. We prepared pretty hard this year and we’re running strong.”

While it marks the 15th victory of Kahne’s career, it marks his first victory at Bristol.

“It’s such a tough place,” Kahne added. “So many things can happen throughout the weekend. To see this team come together and pull out a win, I feel like we accomplished something big today. I’ve always wanted to win here. It feels good.”

Pole sitter Kyle Busch would come back to finish second after a pit road speeding penalty for his 12th top 10 in 17 starts on the World’s Fastest Half-Mile.

“You just stop getting penalties and stay up front all day,” Busch said. “We’re trying to take too much on pit road and it’s not working out for us; we need to back off there. Just was too tight there all day. Just never really had the car. It’s a good day, I guess.”

Keselowski would hold on to finish third to take over the points lead, nine points ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“Again, it’s not meant to be,” Keselowski said. “Just can’t get it together at the end. He had the faster car, may had gotten by me anyway. On the restart, the 11 (Denny Hamlin) car got into me – hard to restart with my back tires up off the ground. Kahne got a nose there on the restart and he was gone. Either way, another third fourth place finish which is a good run. But I want to get a W.”

In speaking of the restart, Denny Hamlin apologized after the race, saying that Joey Logano had gotten into the back of him.

Kurt Busch would finish fourth to bring home a top five finish for Funiture Row Racing.

“We had our struggles,” Busch spoke of his day. “We had some loose wheels and got off sequence there at times. But luckily we had a fast car. We have some things that we have to polish, but a top five here at Bristol is great. To know that we had the fastest car with 10 laps to go is a good feeling. When I caught up to Kyle and Brad, had it been for the lead, it may had been a little different.”

Clint Bowyer would complete the top five. Dale Eanhardt Jr. would finish sixth, followed by Ryan Newman, Brian Vickers, Paul Menard and Jamie McMurray.

As typical with Bristol, the day did not go without any blood boiling over as Hamlin would get into Logano on lap 348, causing Logano heavy rear end damage. Hamlin and Logano were teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing last year, before Logano joined Penske Racing for this season.

“You got to control your car and he slid up into me,” Hamlin said. “We would’ve been in the garage with a broken radiator if I hadn’t let him slide up. I meant to get into him. I didn’t mean to turn him. We both had a bad day, so it’s even.”

“It’s Bristol, but it’s ridiculous,” Logano tweeted. “I feel like I’ve raced him clean but if he’s going to do that, I know how he’s going to race me now that I’m not his teammate. I will race him from now on the way he raced me.”

After the race, Logano made his way over to talk to Hamlin and said some words before crew members separated the pair.

“He told me he’s coming from me but I never see him because he’s never a factor,” Hamlin spoke of the discussion.

“”It wasn’t much of a conversation, but I guess talk is cheap,” Logano said.

The pair would trade words via twitter after the race. This marks the second incident between him after some words were traded on twitter following the Daytona 500. Logano would finish 17th with his damage, while Hamlin finished 23rd after blowing a tire late in the race.

Jimmie Johnson, who came with the points lead, would finish 22nd after blowing a tire and hitting the wall on lap 455. He would finish 22nd.

Johnson’s teammate Jeff Gordon would lead 66 laps, but would also suffer damage after blowing a tire while leading and hitting the wall. He would finish 34th.

“The car was really good out front on the restart,” Gordon said. “Right fronts never go out when you’re up at the wall. I dove down to pass the lap car and it blew it. Definitely unfortunate that we took out Matt with us.”

Matt Kenseth, who was running second at the time, would be collected as he would run into the back of Gordon with no where to go. Kenseth would finish 35th after leading 85 laps.

“It’s not a lot either one of us could do,” Kenseth said. “Really encouraged by Jason (Ratcliff). He made awesome adjustments. We got a little behind and just made it up, wanted to be in the lead for that last pit stop. He blew a tire, nowhere to go. Just unfortunate.”