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Despite four race victories this season, the Evernham driver is in danger of failing to qualify for NASCAR's season-ending Chase for the Championship. Date published: 8/18/2006
By JIM McCONNELL RICHMOND--When Kasey Kahne won the Nextel Cup race at Michigan International Speedway in June, it was his fourth victory in a span of 12 races. He looked like a lock to qualify for the season-ending Chase. Despite several mediocre performances, Kahne still held down sixth in the points standings as recently as a month ago. Since then, however, the third-year Cup driver has seen the wheels fall completely off his No. 9 Dodge team's bid for a series championship. After finishing 31st at Pocono, Kahne squandered a pair of top-10s by crashing on the last lap in consecutive weeks at Indianapolis and Watkins Glen. As the series returns to Michigan's 2-mile oval, Kahne finds himself 11th in Cup points, 54 behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., with four races left in the regular season. He's outside the Chase looking in, and he doesn't like the view. "It's gonna be close. That's just the way it is," Kahne said Wednesday morning during a promotional appearance at Richmond International Raceway. "We need to start winning races." Kahne knows a little something about taking the checkered flag. His four wins this season are matched only by series points leader Jimmie Johnson. But all of Kahne's success came early in the season. In the seven races since his victory at Michigan, Kahne's average finish is 25th. He's placed inside the top 20 only once, at New Hampshire. Kahne was quick to acknowledge that his team has misplaced the magic touch it seemed to possess just a few months ago. "I felt like we were qualifying good, were good in practice, but when we got with a bunch of race cars, we were out to lunch," he said. Still, it took a major dose of bad luck and an ill-timed operator error to knock Kahne out of the top 10. Two weeks ago, Kahne began the final lap of the Allstate 400 in ninth place, with an eye on passing Tony Stewart for eighth. Instead, Kahne smacked the wall after a three-car dogfight with Stewart and Carl Edwards; with all but a few cars still on the lead lap, Kahne was left with a disappointing 36th-place finish.
Date published: 8/18/2006
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