Kahne avoids mishaps, finishes 2nd at Talladega

Posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 AM EST.

Kasey Kahne had to start at the rear of the 43-car field in the No. 9 Budweiser Dodge Charger after an engine change on Friday, but selected the right drafting partners and managed to evade two late-race mishaps to finish second in Sunday’s AMP Energy 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.  It was his best finish in the seven Chase events.

“The team did a good job with our Budweiser Dodge,” Kahne said. “We had a good handling car, but lost the draft a couple of times.  We needed to be in the middle of the draft.  I was just in the right place at the right time.”

Kahne moved up two spots to ninth in the Chase standings, just 12 points out of eighth.

“It unfolded well for us at the end,” Kahne said. “If we got back in the pack, we’d lose the draft. We needed to have cars around us and tried to keep cars behind us mainly. If we were able to do that, we could race pretty decent. The car handled well. We just kind of shot up through there, had great track position on that restart and ran second. It was good for our Budweiser Dodge team.”

Kurt Busch overcame obstacle after obstacle during the scheduled 188-lap event and was in position to challenge for the win in the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger. He restarted ninth when the race was extended beyond the scheduled distance due to a five-car mishap on lap 184. He didn’t make it to the checkered flag when the race ended with the “big one”—a 13-car mishap—which has become a Talladega trademark. Busch finished 30th.

David Stremme had his best run of the season, leading the race twice for 10 laps in the No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge Charger and was in the top five for the final restart, but ran short of fuel when the race was extended the three extra laps. He finished 22nd.

NASCAR issued a warning during the driver’s meeting about bump-drafting, specifically in the corners. For Busch, not everyone would heed the warning. A bump from behind early in the race crumpled the sheet metal up against the rear tire on the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, resulting in a flat tire. Busch restarted two laps down.

 
He got one of the laps back by not stopping during the third caution and received the free pass during the fourth caution on lap 138. That gave (crew chief) Pat Tryson and the crew a chance to make sure the repairs made earlier were ready for the final laps.

Busch worked his way inside the top 10 with 16 laps remaining, but another hit from behind created a tire rub on lap 180 and a flat tire two laps later. That would have been another major setback and one difficult to overcome, but a caution came out while Busch was on pit road and he didn’t lose a lap. With the race extended, several other competitors were running low on fuel and had to stop.

Busch was back in the thick of the battle for the win or at least a top-10 finish. Unfortunately, disappointment was just ahead in the form of a 13-car mishap.

“It was the most emotional highs and lows that I’ve experienced since I’ve been racing here at Talladega,” Busch said. “Early in the race, I was bump drafting with the 83 and had contact which pushed in our right-rear quarter panel and ended up cutting down our right-rear tire. We came to pit road which put us down two laps, but caught a break when the next caution came out. We decided to stay out and take the wave around even though we were seven laps shy of our fuel window. Then another yellow flag came out when we were racing the 44 for the lucky dog position. We passed the 44 which gave us the pass and put us on the lead lap.

“After the restart, we fought our way all the way from 35th to ninth when we cut a left-rear tire on lap 181. That set us back again. We had to pit and amazingly enough, we caught another break when the 39 and 47 got together and the big wreck happen. We started ninth on the green-white flag restart and started to make a push to the front when I get tapped from behind again that sent our Miller Lite Dodge into a spin and into the infield wall, part of the big one. It was just a really strange day.”

Busch remains sixth in the Chase standings, 33 out of fifth, with three races remaining in the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

Driver, team, finish
Kasey Kahne, No. 9 Budweiser Dodge, 2nd
Reed Sorenson, No. 43 Liberty Medical Dodge, 16th
David Stremme, No. 12 Penske Racing Dodge, 22nd
Kurt Busch,No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, 30th
AJ Allmendinger, No. 44 Hunt Brothers Pizza Dodge, 33rd
Sam Hornish Jr., No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge Charger, 40th

Chase point standings
(Race 7 of 10 in the Chase)
1. Jimmie Johnson, 6,248
2. Mark Martin, -184
3. Jeff Gordon,-192
4. Juan Pablo Montoya, -239
5. Tony Stewart, -279
6. Kurt Busch, -312
7. Greg Biffle, -340
8. Ryan Newman, -402
9. Kasey Kahne, -414
10. Carl Edwards, -437
11. Denny Hamlin, -448
12. Brian Vickers, -556

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 AM EST and is filed under Motorsports and tagged Dashboard. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed.