Jared Turner: Do Kahne's stunning performances signal a championship run?
By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer
Monday, May 26, 2008
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COMMENTARY
CONCORD, N.C. – After watching Kasey Kahne pull off the Sprint All-Star Race/Coca-Cola 600 sweep over consecutive weekends at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, my impressions of these proceedings can be summarized in one succinct query.
Where did he come from?
Kahne, the guy who hadn’t won a Cup points race since October 2006, has now gone to victory lane in two of NASCAR’s biggest events over the course of eight days.
His No. 9 Gillett Evernham Motorsports team all of a sudden bears less resemblance to the unit that never seriously contended for wins over the season’s first three months and more resemblance to a team that can compete with the Roush Fenway Racings and Joe Gibbs Racings of the world on a regular basis.
If this isn’t Kahne and Gillett Evernham Motorsports, will the real ones please stand up?
Sure, it might have been tempting to chalk Kahne’s all-star win up to deft strategy or good luck. But now, after Kahne came out and sported one of the best cars throughout the Coca-Cola 600 race weekend, it’s hard to think of the No. 9 team as a one-hit wonder.
The driver doesn’t.
“It’s just confidence,” Kahne said after the Coca-Cola 600. “It feels good to win, no matter what it is. We can carry this win with us throughout the rest of the season, throughout Dover and just keep working together as a team and trying to build and make our Dodges go fast.”
What makes Kahne’s recent triumphs even more remarkable is the fact that they come on the heels of Kahne candidly questioning his team’s ability to produce winning cars as recently as the day before the all-star race.
Never mind that before Kahne’s successes the past two weekends, Dodge had failed to produce a winner since Penske Racing teammates Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch finished one-two in the season-opening Daytona 500.
And never mind that another driver, Carl Edwards, had been in a league of his own so far this season on the intermediate-sized tracks similar to Charlotte.
Ask Kahne or team co-owners George Gillett Jr. and Ray Evernham or team director Kenny Francis exactly what brought about this turnaround and they can’t even say with 100 percent certainty.
“Sometimes it just takes one thing to get some momentum going,” Evernham said. “These guys, they're winners. They've won a lot of races for me in the past. They seem to be clicking again.”
Since Lowe’s Motor Speedway is a good prototype of the 1.5 and two-mile tracks that predominate the rest of the Cup itinerary, it stands to reason that Kahne could add to his trophy case several more times before the year is over.
And it’s not like he doesn’t know how to win. The now-28-year-old accounted for six victories in the 2006 Cup season.
As zany as this sport called NASCAR can be, it wouldn’t surprise me if Kahne – an afterthought to much of the racing world as recently as two weeks ago – goes on to win the championship.
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Kasey Kahne
Comments
2 responses to "Jared Turner: Do Kahne's stunning performances signal a championship run?"
(Jeff_Gordon_Fan_4_Life) said:
May 26, 2008 at 3:18 PMway to go to Kasey Kahne on the back-2-back wins
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» Confirm Abuse ReportAndi Wernke said:
May 26, 2008 at 3:53 PMGreat article Jared. Kasey is a great driver, and it's about time everyone else realized that. He's defnitely a championship driver and I fully believe he will contend for the Cup this season. Thanks for the great article. It's great to see this team return to form.
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