Kasey Kahne still questions legitimacy of late caution at California
Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne hasn't backed off of his assertion that NASCAR might have thrown a caution to make the finish at Auto Club Speedway more exciting. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
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Kasey Kahne still says that he didn’t see any debris on the track to cause a late caution in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway in California.
While he admits he was frustrated at the time that he initially made remarks questioning the caution, Kahne didn’t exactly back off those comments Tuesday.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot of racing. It’s kind of a boring track,” Kahne said shortly that race. “There ain’t much to do out there, so NASCAR decides to throw the debris caution to make it close again, and now we have a bunch of cars torn up.
“It’s NASCAR’s deal. … They won’t let us work on our car. I don’t know what their issues are.”
Kahne, who was NASCAR's guest on a national teleconference with reporters Tuesday, was asked if he stood by the remark or if it was just a product of his frustration.
The question specifically addressed the concept of a "phantom" caution, a term the Richard Petty Motorsports driver quickly pointed out he didn't use. He did, however, say he was unclear on the source of the debris that caused the caution on lap 236. Kahne was then caught up in a crash on lap 239 and then again on lap 245.
"I never said ‘phantom,’" he said. "I think other people may have said that. But I was frustrated. … We made adjustments to get it to where it was. We were a 25th-place car at the start of the race, and we figured out how to get in the top six, top five. Kurt Busch made a mistake and got me into [Greg] Biffle, and then I was in another wreck right after that.
"So I was frustrated. I was disappointed and kind of [upset about] what had happened to us in the Chase. We have had top-10 cars in each race and had a few different problems now that we couldn't do anything about. I said that, and yeah, I didn't see anything on the track. My eyes are wide open, so at the time, I was definitely frustrated. But we also need exciting races and we need exciting finishes, and a track like that, the tire we are racing on there, there's things that make that race, to me, pretty boring, and we needed a caution there at the end to make it exciting, and I guess that's what the fans got."
Kahne went on to finish 34th, dropping to 306 points behind points leader Jimmie Johnson.
