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Kahne Rallies For Pocono Victory

AP Photo

Kasey Kahne crosses the finish line at Pocono to win his third NASCAR Sprint Cup event in four weeks.

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By TONY FABRIZIO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 9, 2008

LONG POND, Pa. - Kasey Kahne won Sunday's Pocono 500 from the pole. It's what he did in between that clearly established him as one of the two hottest drivers in NASCAR.

Making a routine pit stop on the 58th of 200 laps, Kahne got the bad news from crew chief Kenny Francis that his crew had removed three of the lug nuts from a wheel that wasn't being changed.

A second pit stop to correct the problem dropped Kahne to 38th, and given that passing is difficult at Pocono, the mistake dealt a severe blow to his chances of winning.

But Kahne drove his way back through the field, passed Brian Vickers for the lead with 16 laps remaining and grabbed his second victory in three races. Counting his win in the non-points all-star race on May 17, Kahne has won three of the past four weeks.

"Our Dodge was so good I could go anywhere with it," Kahne said after pulling away from Vickers and winning by 3.7 seconds. "When you can go anywhere, you can go where the car in front of you isn't. That made it a lot easier than I expected."

Kyle Busch, who came into the race with three victories in the previous five points races, had a disastrous day and finished last. He started from the rear of the field because he damaged his primary car in practice, and he crashed twice in the race.

Denny Hamlin, who swept Pocono's two races as a rookie in 2006, finished third. Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued his run of points-accumulating finishes with a fourth, and Jeff Burton came seemingly from nowhere to finish fifth.

Burton took a huge chunk out of Busch's points lead, moving to within 21 points.

"There were times when we were the fastest car on the track, and that's a good sign," Burton said. "We came here and experimented with some stuff and we think we can move forward with it."

On Kahne's costly pit stop, University of Florida graduate Francis made a last-second decision to change two tires instead of four. But the decision didn't get communicated to the left-side tire changer, who removed three of the five lug nuts from the left-front wheel.

Kahne went back onto the track not knowing about the mistake. Francis brought him back in and had the crew change the left-side tires.

"I was pretty down, pretty mad at myself," Francis said. "The biggest thing I was afraid of was it was going to rain and we wouldn't have time to get back up there. I figured if it didn't rain, we would have time.

A brief shower did stop the race for seven minutes, but the sky cleared and the race went the 500-mile distance.

Kahne improved to 10th by Lap 90 and was sixth at the halfway point. Before making his final winning pass, he led laps 129 to 151.

"Kenny stepped back up and made perfect calls the rest of the day," Kahne said. "It was just that he could not see the front tire changer in time. We had a little fumble there and had to go to the back and get it all back."

Vickers scored his best finish since leaving Hendrick Motorsports for Red Bull Racing's Toyota team before the 2007 season; his teammate, A.J. Allmendinger, finished a career-best 12th.

Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin completed the top 10. Greg Biffle had a fast car but finished 15th after receiving a stop-and-go penalty for speeding off of pit road.

Vickers led laps 179-184 but was no match for Kahne, who took four new tires on his final pit stop on Lap 174.

"Clean air running up front is huge, but fresh tires were important, too," Vickers said. "When I saw him in my mirror, I didn't think it was over, but I knew it was going to be tough."

Kahne was 14th in the standings after the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington on May 10. He's now up to ninth after winning the Coca-Cola 600 and Sunday's race.

Francis insists the team has been strong all along. Kahne, who won six times in 2006 but was winless last year, says the turning point was a test session at Charlotte in early May..

"We've stayed kind of quiet and nobody talked about us a lot, and that's fine with me," Francis said.

Said Kahne, "Until I actually won this year - the all-star race - I didn't realize I was leaving a little bit out there and wasn't communicating like I should have with Kenny. Since then, I've done a better job. It's just kind of like everything is clicking at the same time.

"I don't think it started at the all-star race. Like Kenny said, we've had strong cars all year. But the Charlotte test, I feel like we hit on some things and we had a great car at Darlington until I ran into the wall. To me, that's where it started - the Charlotte test and Darlington."

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.

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