Regardless of whether he won Sunday’s race in Bristol, Kasey Kahne was going to be sitting much prettier than he was a year ago at this time.
But the Hendrick Motorsports driver did win Sunday for the first time this season, first at the Tennessee bullring, 15th of his career. Now after four races Kahne sits firmly in the top 10 in points, whereas a year ago he was 32nd and facing an uphill climb toward the Chase.
The Bristol win though, has Kahne thinking championship instead of just Chase. While he acknowledges it’s still early, he’s had the momentum and the cars to pull into Victory Lane since the season started. The pieces all fit on Sunday afternoon.
“I definitely believe in momentum. I know I’ve tried to work hard over the years to get more consistent because that was definitely my weak spot since I’ve been in the Sprint Cup Series,” Kahne said on Tuesday during a media teleconference.
“I feel really good about where we’re at right now and the momentum is huge. Confidence, momentum from the driver to the pit crew to the crew chief, every aspect of putting our car on the track, I think when you have momentum and confidence it helps. I’ve been in situations before where I’ve felt like everything was fine, like I was driving every bit as hard as I usually do, and then I won a race and realized, ‘man, now I’m like rejuvenated and have a boost of energy again to race and things.’
“So, I think it definitely helps and sometimes you don’t realize it, but when you are on the upswing and things are going well, everybody feels it and it’s a big part of running well.”
Four weeks ago when the season started Kahne and his No. 5 team came out of the gate strong. They had a car capable of winning the Daytona 500 until he crashed, something he revealed frustrated him because he was running single file and he’s never had a car that fast at Daytona, which went to waste.
Phoenix a week later, completely threw him. Not comfortable or used to the set of tires Goodyear brought for the race, Kahne and company missed their setup. His feedback, he says, wasn’t all that great either. But in Las Vegas, Kahne was the fastest thing in town and led the most laps before finishing second to Matt Kenseth.
Bristol was a big breakthrough and a big race in terms of setting himself up for a run at a championship down the road.
“The championship is still a long ways away, but I think a good start. Just off to a much better start than last year,” Kahne said. “Feel good about that. We got a little behind at the start of the season and fought back clearly in the last two weeks and got back to a good spot.
“I feel good about where we’re at, feel good about the speed of our car and our team and that’s what it’s all about is just being on the same page with all the guys. Right now we’re really working well together and enjoying it, and we have some momentum and confidence after Bristol and really looking forward to Fontana.”
Rightly so, coming off win and heading to a track that he’s won on before. Kahne was the victor at Fontana in 2006 with Dodge and Ray Evernham. A lot has changed for Kahne since then, however he still expects a few things to be the same when heading back to his native coast.
“I look forward to just the really wide racetrack, the speeds will be up, you can move around usually from the white line all the way to the wall, just about run against the wall on a big, two-mile racetrack,” said Kahne, who notes that you have to approach the track with a technical mind because of the seams.
“I’m really excited because I think we’ll be able to drive harder than we’ve ever been able to drive at Fontana in a Sprint Cup car, and I’m really looking forward to that. I think it’s going to be pretty exciting.”
