Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
· Despite a rough start last weekend in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Kasey Kahne and the Budweiser Team look to rebound at Dover International Speedway. Kahne finished a career-best sixth in the spring at Dover and hopes to better that this weekend and gain some ground in the point standings.
· The Budweiser Team will be utilizing the R5 Dodge engine this weekend at Dover.
· In 11 starts at Dover, Kahne has two top-10 finishes.
· Kahne has an average start of 16th and an average finish of 25th at Dover.
Kahne discusses the Chase and racing at Dover International Speedway:
A 38th-place finish in New Hampshire was not exactly the way that you were hoping to start the Chase. How do you keep your momentum going and stay focused for the last nine races?
“New Hampshire was a tough deal for us. You never know how the Chase is going to shake out. Maybe last weekend was our bad luck for the Chase and we got it out of the way. All that we can continue to do is what we have been doing. There are still nine races to go in the Chase and a lot of ground can be made up in nine races.”
Do you approach the race weekend any differently during these last nine races?
“No. We work really hard during practice to get the balance of the car where we need it to be. That’s all you have on Sunday. If your car handles and you can move around on the race track and you can move around other cars and pass and figure out ways to pass cars, that’s what it’s all about. We’ll just do everything we can throughout the weekend and hopefully have that balance where we can race.”
Dover’s concrete surface and the high-banking put a lot of emphasis on the front-end of the car. Is this a track where communication with Kenny Francis is more important compared to other tracks?
“It is….but it’s also one of those places that if you unload (the racecar) and you’re off, you can get better, but you’ll never get to where you want to be. On a race weekend here, you’re package needs to be close when you start practice or you’ll never really get there for some reason.”
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