Budweiser Racing Team Notes of Interest
· This weekend will mark Kasey Kahne’s ninth career start at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
· In eight starts at New Hampshire, Kahne has one top-five and four top-10 finishes.
· Kahne has an average start of 17th and an average finish of 16th at the 1.058-mile oval.
· Kahne is now ninth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver point standings. He is 450 points behind series leader Kyle Busch.
· Kahne paid tribute to the men and women in uniform on June 23 with a visit to Madigan Army Medical Center and the Post Exchange in Fort Lewis, Wash. Kahne was able to spend time privately with soldiers who recently returned from the front lines.
Kahne Discusses Racing in the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire:
Last weekend wasn’t exactly the finish that you were hoping for. “It was frustrating to say the least, to start on the pole and then finish 33rd. Sonoma is always tough for us and it seemed like if it could go wrong, it did last Sunday. But, this week is a new week and we’re going to a track that’s been pretty good to us over the years. We really haven’t had too many cars capable of winning at Loudon, but we’ve usually been good enough to run in the top 10 or top 15. This weekend, it’s going to be important for us to get some of the momentum back.”
We’re approaching the final 10 races to the ‘Race to the Chase’, what are your thoughts on the upcoming races? “I’m not super comfortable with where we are at in the points. We definitely need to keep staying after it and keep gaining points and doing everything we can to stay in the top 12. We definitely have a lot of work to get in (the Chase) and there are a lot of good cars still on the outside and right behind us. We need to keep working. There are a lot of good tracks coming up for us. We’ve been fast at a lot of the upcoming tracks.”
Do you look at the cars directly behind you in the Chase standings and feel like you have to race them in particular versus the entire field? “All I look at is our performance in the Budweiser Dodge and what we need to work on each day. We have to focus on the best job that we can do and get the best finish that we can get. Whether that’s a 30th, 20th or first-place, it doesn’t matter to me. If its 30th, it’s not what we’re looking for, but 30th is better than 35th. We just have to get our best finish – every single weekend at every single race. If we do that, I think that we’ll have a really good shot at making the Chase.”
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