Kasey Kahne ready to put California setbacks behind him
Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne is 11th in the Chase For The Sprint Cup standings heading into Saturday's race at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
// Chuck Yadmark, NASCAR Scene
CONCORD. N.C. - Kasey Kahne says that when you really love to race it can be easier to accept some of the setbacks that can come on the track.
Kahne should know. The Richard Petty Motorsports driver endured a dramatic ending to last weekend's race at Auto Club Speedway in California. Running in the top 10 late in the race, he was caught up in a crash when Kurt Busch lost control of his Penske Racing Dodge and sideswiped him, and then he was in another wreck just a few laps after returning from the pits for those repairs. He fell to 306 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson with the incidents.
Still, he's looking forward to getting back in a race this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, site of Saturday's NASCAR Banking 500.
"I think the biggest thing for me is how much I love to race and how much I love to drive cars," the 29-year-old driver said. "We have Charlotte … we have Texas and we have some tracks that we have ran really well at in the past [coming up]. So it's pretty easy for me to get over that, and knowing that I have these next races coming up, we still have opportunities to win. We probably don't have an opportunity to win a Sprint Cup, but we definitely have opportunities to win, and so I'm excited about that."
Kahne is pulling double duty this weekend, competing in both the Nationwide Series race Friday night and Cup race Saturday.
He said that he really enjoys racing at the 1.5-mile track, where he has three wins and four consecutive top-10 finishes in the Cup series. He has six top-10s in the last seven races there.
"It has been a great track for us in the past," he said. "We always seem to be able to figure out the balance that allows us to move around the race track – high low, middle – work past cars wherever you can. That seems like the hard part in this sport, having a car that can run all over [the track] and still be fast. We’ve been able to figure that out here pretty often. Hopefully, we can again this weekend with both cars.
"In the Nationwide Series, I get to drive a car that looks like Richard Petty’s [car] from his 200th win. It’s a pretty neat opportunity for myself. The car looks really good."
And he'll be competing against some familiar competition. A total of 16 drivers were scheduled to attempt to run both races this weekend, including Kahne's RPM teammate Reed Sorenson.
Kahne says that he enjoys his relationship with his teammate, even though Sorenson will not return to the team next season.
"We get along pretty well," Kahne said. "He’s been doing a pretty good job. Last week, he was running second-best out of our cars. I think the 9 (Kahne car) was the best, then the 43 [of Sorenson]. He had a good race going. I don’t really look at it any different. We’re just kind of racing until the end of the year. We’ll keep working together, doing the same things. It’s too bad that he won’t be with us. Hopefully, he’ll find something that will work for him next year and keep racing in the series.
“We’re not even sure exactly what we [Richard Petty Motorsports] are doing, so it’s hard to really talk too much about that. As far as our Dodges go, yeah, we talk a lot about our Dodges, and Reed knows everything that is going on just like I know everything that’s going on with his team if we want to. If you spend the time and go and look at what they’re doing, that’s your option, and you can see everything that’s going on. It’s the same for him with my cars.”
