Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
Kasey Kahne and the No. 9 Budweiser Ford team head to Talladega Superspeedway looking to build on the momentum they gained following Monday’s fifth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway. The run was the team’s third top-10 finish of the season and boosted Kahne up four spots in the point standings to 22nd, just 120 points out of the 12th-place cut-off point for the Chase for the Championship.
Kahne finished second in last fall’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. Kahne also finished second at the track in the fall of 2006 and has an average start of 26.9 and an average finish of 21.7 at Talladega.
Kahne and the No. 9 Budweiser Ford team are participating in a two-day Goodyear tire test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week prior to the race in Talladega.
Kasey Kahne discusses racing at Talladega:
What do you enjoy about restrictor plate racing?
“I’ve always loved restrictor-plate racing. You can take the wrong lane and move backwards and the next time take a different lane and move up a bunch of spots. There is always something going on around you and you’re totally focused for three or four hours of racing. A lot of it is a guessing game throughout the entire race. It’s really intense.”
What are the keys to a good finish at Talladega?
“Stay out of trouble – that’s what it’s all about, and getting the car to draft well. As far as sucking up – you can do a little bit here and there. You want horsepower to show up and if we can do that – then you just have to wait until the end of the race. It’s all about the last couple of laps – getting in the right line with the right drivers behind you. You just never know who they’re going to be. I’ve tried to go with Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) a couple times and it hasn’t worked. I’ve went with Junior and it has worked. I‘ve went with other guys - you just never really know, but you try to make the right guess and hope that it works out.”
What are the last 20 laps like at Talladega?
“A lot of blocking and you’re trying to be in the right lane. You’re always trying not to let somebody get you out of line and push you back. It’s intense – really intense. Every lap is pretty intense except when you get strung out in a line and everybody gets out running along the wall. All that does is waste a few hundred miles of the race and makes the racing really boring.”
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