I know folks, I just couldn’t resist the title to this column. What a week and a half Kasey Kahne had at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, huh? He won the Sprint All-Star Race and pocketed the cool $1 million that went along with that. Then Sunday he captured the Coca Cola 600 and another half-million for doing that. Not too bad a couple weekends work, huh?
Congratulations to him and the entire Bud team. He also has done something that only five others have done and that was winning the All-Star Race and Coke 600 in the same weekend. I was fortunate to be one of those five. We did that in 1985 winning the All Star race on Saturday, winning the 600 on Sunday and then going on to win the championship that year. So there is something to be said about what Kahne has accomplished and the kind of tone it sets for his race team.
With so much talk out there about the stars of NASCAR, it is amazing that people forget about Casey Kahne.
Well, that’s not fair to say. If not for the people - in this case, the diehard NASCAR fans who cheer for their favorites each and every week - we wouldn’t be talking about the winner of two straight Sprint Cup events.
The 28-year-old with the boyish looks who once starred as the affection of a group of women in an auto insurance commercial was voted into the race by the fans and given the chance to be on the grid with the current points leader.
And he took advantage of it. Though the win was a non-point event, Kahne out-raced everyone to the finish line.
If Casey Kahne had his way, he’d race at Lowe’s every single week. It doesn’t work that way, though. He will have to win on other tracks. And the win gave him motivation which would barely qualify him for the Chase for the Cup at the end of the season.
All of a sudden, Kahne’s turned what was a ho-hum season into Dodge’s best hope to make the Chase. This week’s win at Lowe’s was more luck than anything else even Kahne admitted he was “thinking second” before Stewart slowed up with tire failure with three laps left. But the No. 9 team will take it, as it ends their 52-race winless streak in points-paying events and boosts Kahne up to 12th in the season standings. Now 56 points ahead of David Ragan for that final spot, their job is to keep the momentum rolling.
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