Having previously won both points races in a single season at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, and having already won both the non-points Sprint Cup All-Star race and the Coca-Cola 600 last May at the track, Kasey Kahne already has his name etched on a couple of elite lists.
But now he would like to start his own.
Kahne could comprise a List of One if he captures this Saturday’s Bank of America 500 at LMS to pull off an unprecedented sweep of the three events at the track in a single season. He’s already one of only seven drivers who have won both points races at LMS in the same season—having accomplished that feat in 2006. The others on that list are an impressive lot: Fred Lorenzen, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson.
Only Johnson has done it twice, when he won four LMS points events in a row from May of 2004 through October of 2005. But Kahne wants more than to become just the second driver to accomplish that. He wants to be the first to win all three LMS events in the same season.
“I think it would be neat because no one has ever done it,” Kahne said. “The list that has won the All-Star [race] and the 600 is pretty short. To be on that list is really exciting, and really is probably the coolest list I’ve ever been on as a racecar driver.
“To be on a list of my own for doing anything at such a great racetrack as Lowe’s would really be something.”
Johnson, the current leader in points, certainly is no stranger to Victory Lane at LMS. But he said that Kahne is now the one to beat at this venue, citing not only Kahne’s sweep of the two races last May but also Kahne’s back-to-back victories at the track in the two 2006 points races.
“Kasey Kahne has had more momentum here than anyone, I would say, over the last two or three years,” Johnson said.
“If you don’t race it for three or four months or don’t make any improvements, you’re going to get behind. That’s just all there is to it. And when we unloaded for the test, where we were for the first race, it just wasn’t good enough. We started putting some things into it that we had learned over the last three or four months, and by the end of the test I think we were pretty strong.” Kahne said.
That has him excited about his chances of pulling off the unprecedented three-peat. But what he’s really pointing toward now is 2009 after what happened in May at Lowe’s did not turn out to be the springboard he had hoped for the remainder of the 2008 season.
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