Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne hopes to turn his season around in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600
Richard Petty Motorsports' Kasey Kahne is the defending race winner of Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
Richard Petty Motorsports driver Kasey Kahne certainly hasn't had the NASCAR Sprint Cup season he envisioned. But with the Coca-Cola 600 on tap, and his team preparing to use Dodge's newest engine the following week at Dover International Speedway, he thinks things are looking better down the road.
Kahne may have good reason for optimism. A year ago, he enjoyed a surge at this point in the season. After taking a surprising win in the 2008 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, he went on to win the 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and followed that up two weeks later with a victory at Pocono.
This year, he enters the 600 16th in the standings. He has not finished higher than 23rd in the last three points races and earned his last top-10 finish in the season's fifth race.
Can he begin to turn things around this weekend?
"I think we have a good shot at hitting on something and running pretty strong at Charlotte," he said.
Beyond that, the key will be the engine.
Penske Racing has used the new engine, known as the R6, all season. Kahne's group has been working with it off the track but has yet to use it in a race. RPM drivers Elliott Sadler, AJ Allmendinder and Reed Sorenson have also continued to race the tested engine that the team used last season.
For Kahne, that will change at Dover. That addition and the work his Kenny Francis-led team has done on the car give Kahne reason for optimism.
"I feel like everybody has worked really hard, and they're trying hard," Kahne said in assessing his season to date. "I think engine-wise we're still in the same spot as we were last year. Our cars are getting better each week. They've built some really nice race cars, Dodge Chargers, over the last month. And I'm really happy about that and how hard the guys have worked and tried to build one of the best cars on the track.
"So that's a huge deal there. But performance, I would say, is very close to where it was last year. And we need to keep working on that and picking that up. And when we get the R6 for Dover, I think that's going to be a big help. I think that engine runs really well, if you look at the way Penske has run this year. Hopefully, we get that, and that will really improve and show how good our cars really are."
Kahne believes the engine could help the team right away.
"The engine is supposed to be a lighter engine, the way they've built it," he said. "They put some time into it. And it should be able to run a little bit cooler, which creates more take on the front of the car, which creates more down force, and it's supposed to run better. …
"You watch, when I start around, say, [Penske drivers] David Stremme or Kurt Busch, Sam Hornish, as they come up through the gears, their engines really go hard compared to ours through that area, through that range. And in the past, I haven't felt like Penske has ever been better than Richard Petty Motorsports Engines. So I think once we get that R6 engine, it will help our torque curve. The horsepower will, hopefully, be a little better also, but I think it's getting to that point where that engine's going to be a lot better."
Kahne hopes that can help the team gain ground on the competition.
While there's a lot of pressure associated with trying to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup as a driver, Kahne's role as a team owner in the World of Outlaws and United States Auto Club provides a diversion away from the track.
"It gives me a little bit more to think about," he said. "You know, I have my cousin Willy who has raced with me since I started, and he's a big part of Kasey Kahne Racing. So he helps out a ton there, and, hopefully, everybody works well together, and I don't have to worry about it as much as just making sure they have an opportunity to get the right parts and engines and things like that.
"And when they're close to a Cup track, it's always nice to get out there and just hang out with the guys and relax and watch what they do each week. And it's a tough series. So for them to run really well in it, it definitely makes me feel good."
What would also help are some good runs.
Kahne has a pair of top-10 finishes and was in position to earn a Chase berth for a five-week span. It has only been in the last couple of races that he has slipped further from the championship-contending field that he was a member of in 2006.
Kahne admits that a driver never really ceases to think about the Chase, but the pressure to be in that top 12 isn't as intense yet as it will be.
As he looks over his season, and the upcoming races, he's confident that he can still make a run at that elite group and contend for the title once more.
"It needs to be on your mind in every race, just getting as many possible points as you can," he said. "And we're 16th. Seemed like we were in the top 12 a little bit earlier in the season. We've dropped some lately. But from where [we are], we ran I feel really good being only 60 points out of 12. So if we keep picking it up, keep getting better, like I feel we should and that we will, I think we're still in a fine position.
"I think it gets another month or two into it and you're 60, 70 points out of 12th and you have to start really figuring out how you get those points. But right now I don't really feel like there's too much more pressure. You just have to make sure that we get each point that we can each week, finish all the races and keep getting our cars better and faster."
